June 28, 2013
Nazare, Portugal
IRIS
NASA's Interface Region Imaging Spectrograph (IRIS) solar observatory separated from its Pegasus rocket and is in the proper orbit. This followed a successful launch by the Orbital Sciences Pegasus XL rocket from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. It was the final Pegasus launch currently manifested by NASA. NASA's Launch Services Program at the agency's Kennedy Space Center in Florida managed the countdown and launch.
http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/videogallery/index.html?media_id=165117971
Nina
Friends and authorities are beginning to fear the worst for the seven sailors aboard the classic 70-ft American staysail schooner Nina, as the vessel hasn't been heard from since June 3. Those aboard included owner David Dyche III, 58, and his wife Rosemary, 60, both of Panama City, Florida; their 17-year-old son David; Evi Nemeth, 73, of Colorado; an unidentified 28-year old American male; an unidentified 18-year old American female; and a 35-year old British male.
Dyche, a commercial ship captain, has owned the schooner for more than 25 years, and has successfully cruised her and raced her from the East Coast to Turkey to many places in the Caribbean. He was fully aware of the rough weather that sailors often encounter on the way between New Zealand and Australia. In Dyche's last Facebook posting on May 29, he wrote, "The Tasman Sea is shooting gales out like a machine gun, living up to its reputation. We are shooting at leaving out after the first one this week. No doubt we will be dancing with one or two of them.”
The famed schooner left New Zealand's Bay of Islands on May 29 bound for Newcastle, Australia. On June 3, when Nina was 360 miles northwest of Cape Reinga, the northernmost tip of New Zealand, she contacted respected Kiwi meteorologist Bob McDavitt, reported rough conditions, and asked for advice on how to get out of it. McDavitt, who says that nobody sounded distressed on the boat, advised them to head south and prepare to be hit by winds to 60 knots and 20-ft seas. These are heavy weather conditions, but certainly the schooner had ridden out as bad or worse.
Despite attempts to contact Nina the following day, McDavitt got no response. It wasn't until June 14 that New Zealand Rescue Services learned the boat was overdue. Since then they have conducted what has been described as their most intensive search ever. But nothing has been found.
Nina, a narrow schooner with long overhangs, was designed by the famed Starling Burgess and built by Ruben Bigelow on Monument Beach in Cape Cod in 1928. She was built expressly to win the 3,900-mile race from New York to Santander, Spain. And she did. When she arrived in Santander, a launch pulled alongside and a gentleman waved his cap and shouted, "Well sailed, Nina, I congratulate you. I am the King of Spain."
Nina continued on to England where she became the first American vessel to win the prestigious 600-mile Fastnet Race. She then won the London to Chesapeake Bay Race, after which her owner got involved in the America's Cup. She was purchased and much loved by a New York banker, and was an extremely successful on the race course before and after World War II. After several more owners and being donated to the King's Point, she was purchased by Dyche in 1989. After successful racing in the Northeast and the Caribbean, he cruised her as far east as Turkey and as far south as Grenada.
In 2008, the Dyche family started making a circumnavigation with the schooner, and a documentary, intending to finish it prior to their son's entering college.
While nobody knows what happened to Nina, several maritime rescue experts have speculated that the 84-year-old wood boat suffered a catastrophic failure, one that for some reason left the crew unable to set off the vessel's EPIRB.
Dyche, a commercial ship captain, has owned the schooner for more than 25 years, and has successfully cruised her and raced her from the East Coast to Turkey to many places in the Caribbean. He was fully aware of the rough weather that sailors often encounter on the way between New Zealand and Australia. In Dyche's last Facebook posting on May 29, he wrote, "The Tasman Sea is shooting gales out like a machine gun, living up to its reputation. We are shooting at leaving out after the first one this week. No doubt we will be dancing with one or two of them.”The famed schooner left New Zealand's Bay of Islands on May 29 bound for Newcastle, Australia. On June 3, when Nina was 360 miles northwest of Cape Reinga, the northernmost tip of New Zealand, she contacted respected Kiwi meteorologist Bob McDavitt, reported rough conditions, and asked for advice on how to get out of it. McDavitt, who says that nobody sounded distressed on the boat, advised them to head south and prepare to be hit by winds to 60 knots and 20-ft seas. These are heavy weather conditions, but certainly the schooner had ridden out as bad or worse.
Despite attempts to contact Nina the following day, McDavitt got no response. It wasn't until June 14 that New Zealand Rescue Services learned the boat was overdue. Since then they have conducted what has been described as their most intensive search ever. But nothing has been found.
Nina, a narrow schooner with long overhangs, was designed by the famed Starling Burgess and built by Ruben Bigelow on Monument Beach in Cape Cod in 1928. She was built expressly to win the 3,900-mile race from New York to Santander, Spain. And she did. When she arrived in Santander, a launch pulled alongside and a gentleman waved his cap and shouted, "Well sailed, Nina, I congratulate you. I am the King of Spain."
Nina continued on to England where she became the first American vessel to win the prestigious 600-mile Fastnet Race. She then won the London to Chesapeake Bay Race, after which her owner got involved in the America's Cup. She was purchased and much loved by a New York banker, and was an extremely successful on the race course before and after World War II. After several more owners and being donated to the King's Point, she was purchased by Dyche in 1989. After successful racing in the Northeast and the Caribbean, he cruised her as far east as Turkey and as far south as Grenada.
In 2008, the Dyche family started making a circumnavigation with the schooner, and a documentary, intending to finish it prior to their son's entering college.
While nobody knows what happened to Nina, several maritime rescue experts have speculated that the 84-year-old wood boat suffered a catastrophic failure, one that for some reason left the crew unable to set off the vessel's EPIRB.
Totally blind................
Mitsuhiro 'Hiro' Iwamoto, a 46-year-old totally blind sailor, set out from Fukushima bound for San Diego on June 16 on a voyage to bring awareness to tsunami victims and to support local schools. Iwamoto was sailing with a sighted crewmember, 57-year-old newscaster Jiro Shinbou, aboard his Bristol Channel Cutter Aeolus about 800 miles off Honshu on June 21 when the boat made contact with what appears to be a gigantic piece of flotsam. The video below shows the moment of impact and a large pointy object can be seen directly in the boat's path. If you watch carefully at the end, you can also see a large shadow in the water next to the boat after the collision. There's been no official word what Aeolus hit, but it doesn't appear to be a whale.
When Aeolus began taking on water, Shinbou requested assistance. Within minutes, he called their shore team to let them know "Flooding water is greater than they can pump out. They have to abandon Aeolus and move to a liferaft in order to survive. Both are in good condition with no injury." Two attempts were made by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force to reach the pair before they were finally plucked from the raft and taken back to Japan. They were uninjured but Aeolus sank. You can read more about Hiro and his mission at his website.
When Aeolus began taking on water, Shinbou requested assistance. Within minutes, he called their shore team to let them know "Flooding water is greater than they can pump out. They have to abandon Aeolus and move to a liferaft in order to survive. Both are in good condition with no injury." Two attempts were made by the Japan Maritime Self-Defense Force to reach the pair before they were finally plucked from the raft and taken back to Japan. They were uninjured but Aeolus sank. You can read more about Hiro and his mission at his website.
Fix the Senate.........
The current Senate rules enable obstruction and block progress on a range of issues key to America’s future. In past years, our nation was able to move forward on landmark legislation that put in place workers’ rights, civil rights, retirement security for seniors and so much more.
THE PROMISE AND REALITY OF SENATE RULES REFORM THIS CONGRESS
At the beginning of the current, 112th Congress, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Reid and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced a “gentlemen’s agreement” to break the procedural gridlock that kept the Senate tied in knots through most of 2010.
A package of meaningful Senate reforms backed by reform-minded Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Tom Udall (D-NM), and Tom Harkin (D-IA) and supported by the Fix the Senate Now coalition failed to achieve a majority, with one falling just two votes short of passage. However, we hoped that the modest steps away from obstruction outlined in the “gentleman’s agreement” would be honored. Unfortunately, the Senate quickly defaulted to its obstructionist tendencies.
According to research by David Waldman of Congress Matters and Daily Kos, this current 112th Congress already has witnessed the third highest total of cloture motions ever filed. The only two sessions to see greater levels of obstruction were the immediately preceding 110th and 111th sessions.
CONSEQUENCES OF OBSTRUCTION
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) infamously declared that his “single most important” goal was to make President Obama a “one-term president.” His playbook from the start of the Obama Administration was simple – to convince his caucus to obstruct anything and everything. As a result, to an extent unprecedented in American history, 60 votes became the needed threshold for nearly every order of Senate business.
Republicans derailed energy and climate legislation, halted the DREAM Act, which passed the House while receiving 55 votes in the Senate, and blocked any debate on the Employee Free Choice Act, which passed the House with an overwhelming majority and garnered 59 supporters in the Senate. Most recently, in July, the DISCLOSE Act – which would have increased transparency over independent groups’ campaign spending – failed to overcome a Republican filibuster and died, despite receiving support from 51 Senators and past support from many current Republican opponents. Also in July, Senate Republicans blocked the Bring Jobs Home Act, which would have encouraged in-sourcing by providing tax incentives to companies that bring jobs back to the United States from overseas.
Separately from blocking substantive legislation, Republicans have used Senate rules to gum up even the most basic levers of governance. As Gregory Kroger, a University of Miami political scientist and filibuster expert, said, “The Senate has ceased to be a functioning organization.”
Fix it!
The Senate Resolution 4 rules reform package would protect the voice and power of the minority, while expediting the consideration of legislation and nominations.
The most significant reform is replacing the current “silent” filibuster with the “talking” filibuster, so that when the Senate votes for continued debate, there is a debate, but the period of debate ends when all comments are exhausted. This will increase accountability by making the filibuster a public exercise and discouraging frivolous filibusters.
Creates a “talking filibuster.” If a majority of the Senate votes for cloture, but not the 60 Senators required to invoke it – which means 41 Senators have voted to continue debate – then the majority leader can initiate a period of extended debate. This period ends, and cloture can be invoked by a majority, if at any point no Senator seeks to continue debating. This forces Senators who filibuster to actually speak on the floor, greatly increasing public accountability and requiring time and energy if the minority wants to use this tool to obstruct the Senate.
THE PROMISE AND REALITY OF SENATE RULES REFORM THIS CONGRESS
At the beginning of the current, 112th Congress, U.S. Senate Majority Leader Reid and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) announced a “gentlemen’s agreement” to break the procedural gridlock that kept the Senate tied in knots through most of 2010.
A package of meaningful Senate reforms backed by reform-minded Senators Jeff Merkley (D-OR), Tom Udall (D-NM), and Tom Harkin (D-IA) and supported by the Fix the Senate Now coalition failed to achieve a majority, with one falling just two votes short of passage. However, we hoped that the modest steps away from obstruction outlined in the “gentleman’s agreement” would be honored. Unfortunately, the Senate quickly defaulted to its obstructionist tendencies.
According to research by David Waldman of Congress Matters and Daily Kos, this current 112th Congress already has witnessed the third highest total of cloture motions ever filed. The only two sessions to see greater levels of obstruction were the immediately preceding 110th and 111th sessions.
CONSEQUENCES OF OBSTRUCTION
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) infamously declared that his “single most important” goal was to make President Obama a “one-term president.” His playbook from the start of the Obama Administration was simple – to convince his caucus to obstruct anything and everything. As a result, to an extent unprecedented in American history, 60 votes became the needed threshold for nearly every order of Senate business.
Republicans derailed energy and climate legislation, halted the DREAM Act, which passed the House while receiving 55 votes in the Senate, and blocked any debate on the Employee Free Choice Act, which passed the House with an overwhelming majority and garnered 59 supporters in the Senate. Most recently, in July, the DISCLOSE Act – which would have increased transparency over independent groups’ campaign spending – failed to overcome a Republican filibuster and died, despite receiving support from 51 Senators and past support from many current Republican opponents. Also in July, Senate Republicans blocked the Bring Jobs Home Act, which would have encouraged in-sourcing by providing tax incentives to companies that bring jobs back to the United States from overseas.
Separately from blocking substantive legislation, Republicans have used Senate rules to gum up even the most basic levers of governance. As Gregory Kroger, a University of Miami political scientist and filibuster expert, said, “The Senate has ceased to be a functioning organization.”
Fix it!
The Senate Resolution 4 rules reform package would protect the voice and power of the minority, while expediting the consideration of legislation and nominations.
The most significant reform is replacing the current “silent” filibuster with the “talking” filibuster, so that when the Senate votes for continued debate, there is a debate, but the period of debate ends when all comments are exhausted. This will increase accountability by making the filibuster a public exercise and discouraging frivolous filibusters.
Creates a “talking filibuster.” If a majority of the Senate votes for cloture, but not the 60 Senators required to invoke it – which means 41 Senators have voted to continue debate – then the majority leader can initiate a period of extended debate. This period ends, and cloture can be invoked by a majority, if at any point no Senator seeks to continue debating. This forces Senators who filibuster to actually speak on the floor, greatly increasing public accountability and requiring time and energy if the minority wants to use this tool to obstruct the Senate.
RC-44 Marstrand Cup
Nico Martinez grabbed this great shot from the RC-44
Marstrand Cup yesterday
, and a little googling of the fleet revealed that
the RC-44 Class seems to have become the de facto place for the world’s oil and
gas traders to come and play. It probably has something to do with the TP52′s
increased democratization and publicity for the new 52 Super Series;
billionaires like Gennadi Timchenko – one of Russia’s most powerful men – prefer
a slightly more private and exclusive playground. Regardless of what you think
of the boat, if you’re looking for absolute privacy and exclusivity, or you just
want to schmooze with energy company execs, the RC-44 is where it’s at.
, and a little googling of the fleet revealed that
the RC-44 Class seems to have become the de facto place for the world’s oil and
gas traders to come and play. It probably has something to do with the TP52′s
increased democratization and publicity for the new 52 Super Series;
billionaires like Gennadi Timchenko – one of Russia’s most powerful men – prefer
a slightly more private and exclusive playground. Regardless of what you think
of the boat, if you’re looking for absolute privacy and exclusivity, or you just
want to schmooze with energy company execs, the RC-44 is where it’s at.
Old school and new school...
A schooner and a kite boarder... This is a good look at what sailing has become, the old wood hulled sailing ships that plied the oceans to the fast flying kites of pure recreational sailing..
Oracle Oracle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=J3wIhaK70kA
A little video of the two Oracle boats out for a spin in the fog. A nice little commercial for Oracle sailing but it is cool to see. Only a couple of weeks before the racing is to start, but will have to see how it plays out with just two challengers racing.
Stay tuned....
A little video of the two Oracle boats out for a spin in the fog. A nice little commercial for Oracle sailing but it is cool to see. Only a couple of weeks before the racing is to start, but will have to see how it plays out with just two challengers racing.
Stay tuned....
June 27, 2013
Fish...
At a sustainable seafood conference held in New York. The place was buzzing with equal parts excitement (surrounding innovations in aquaculture and sustainable fish stocks) and dread (surrounding the dwindling supply of healthy wild fish). One thing the experts largely agreed upon was that the idea of having a definitive and trusty list of fish to eat, as well as fish to avoid, was illusory at best. The reason is that conditions are changing so quickly, as are technology and the environment, that purchasing and consuming the “right” fish is like trying to hit a moving target. The takeaway is that if you want to make the right seafood choices, guides like Monterey Bay Aquarium’s Seafood Watch provide thoughtful guidance, but cannot provide the definitive answer as what to eat and avoid, because things are constantly changing.
The solution is not to give up and start eating shark and Bluefin Tuna (both on the “Avoid” list) or to stop eating fish altogether (although this should be a consideration for some, if not many) but to stay reasonably informed, as eating fish is kind of like shopping for a mortgage. All of that said, I did come upon a compelling list which was recently published by Rodale naming the dozen (or “dirty dozen”) varieties of fish that are pretty much always a bad idea to consume, taking into account everything from environmental impact to toxicity.
The list is as follows:
Imported Catfish
Caviar
Atlantic Cod
American Eel
Imported Shrimp
Atlantic Flatfish
Atlantic Salmon (Wild and Farmed)
Imported King Crab
Shark
Orange Roughy
Atlantic Blue Fin Tuna
Chilean Sea Bass
So the obvious question would be, “Well what the hell can I eat?” Well the list gives alternatives such as:
Domestic catfish
Yellow snapper
Pacific halibut
Wild Alaskan salmon
Wild gulf shrimp
Pacific cod
American lake sturgeon
The past few years have shown some positive signs in the industry of sustainable aquaculture producing relatively “clean” seafood in far less environmentally damaging ways. The trick is remaining informed and vigilant, knowing full well that unless things change for the better, buying and consuming the right fish will continue to be a difficult endeavor.
The solution is not to give up and start eating shark and Bluefin Tuna (both on the “Avoid” list) or to stop eating fish altogether (although this should be a consideration for some, if not many) but to stay reasonably informed, as eating fish is kind of like shopping for a mortgage. All of that said, I did come upon a compelling list which was recently published by Rodale naming the dozen (or “dirty dozen”) varieties of fish that are pretty much always a bad idea to consume, taking into account everything from environmental impact to toxicity.
The list is as follows:
Imported Catfish
Caviar
Atlantic Cod
American Eel
Imported Shrimp
Atlantic Flatfish
Atlantic Salmon (Wild and Farmed)
Imported King Crab
Shark
Orange Roughy
Atlantic Blue Fin Tuna
Chilean Sea Bass
So the obvious question would be, “Well what the hell can I eat?” Well the list gives alternatives such as:
Domestic catfish
Yellow snapper
Pacific halibut
Wild Alaskan salmon
Wild gulf shrimp
Pacific cod
American lake sturgeon
The past few years have shown some positive signs in the industry of sustainable aquaculture producing relatively “clean” seafood in far less environmentally damaging ways. The trick is remaining informed and vigilant, knowing full well that unless things change for the better, buying and consuming the right fish will continue to be a difficult endeavor.
Voting Rights Act
By Gerry Hebert, Campaign Legal Center
The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, struck down core provisions of the Voting Rights Act. The Court declared Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional, invalidating the coverage formula that determines which jurisdictions must seek federal approval of their voting changes under the Act. This decision is a major setback for voting rights and will have a real, detrimental impact on voters.
Without federal oversight of voting changes in the covered states, the cause of racial equality and effective participation by minority voters in our democracy is harmed in four ways:
First, minority voters will not be informed of voting changes occurring in their community, as they were until the Shelby County decision. Second, the Shelby County decision means that changes in voting procedures will take effect immediately, without any review of whether those proposed changes harm minority voters. Third, minority voters now will bear the heavy burdens of time and expense of litigating to stop racially discriminatory voting procedures. Fourth, the preclearance provisions have a clear legal standard (retrogression) that was easily understood by state and local governments. That clear legal standard will no longer be applied to covered states and political subdivisions as a result of the Shelby County decision.
The Court’s decision is also a radical act of judicial activism. It is a slap in the face to the congressional authority to enact legislation to enforce the post-Civil War Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution. As Justice Ginsburg correctly observed in her dissent in the Shelby County case, “It is well established that Congress’ judgment regarding exercise of its power to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments warrants substantial deference.” The Court failed to afford Congress this “well-established” deference. To illustrate how extreme the decision in Shelby County is, it is worth noting that not since 1883 has the U.S. Supreme Court struck down an act of Congress that was passed to enforce these Amendments.
In its Shelby County ruling, the Court not only cast aside decades of legal precedents, but it also usurped Congress’s role of enforcing those Amendments “by appropriate legislation.” The Court’s decision in the Shelby County case overrode Congress’ decision that the special provisions of the Voting Rights Act were still needed in the covered jurisdictions, substituting its decision for the considered views of Congress that voting discrimination remains particularly acute in the covered areas. Decisions like Shelby County do great harm to the Court as an institution and the traditional respect for the Bench.
Congress should act in a bipartisan manner to update the coverage formula to determine what jurisdictions will be covered by Section 5 and ensure that voters will continue to be protected from the evils of discrimination.
The Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision in Shelby County v. Holder, struck down core provisions of the Voting Rights Act. The Court declared Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional, invalidating the coverage formula that determines which jurisdictions must seek federal approval of their voting changes under the Act. This decision is a major setback for voting rights and will have a real, detrimental impact on voters.
Without federal oversight of voting changes in the covered states, the cause of racial equality and effective participation by minority voters in our democracy is harmed in four ways:
First, minority voters will not be informed of voting changes occurring in their community, as they were until the Shelby County decision. Second, the Shelby County decision means that changes in voting procedures will take effect immediately, without any review of whether those proposed changes harm minority voters. Third, minority voters now will bear the heavy burdens of time and expense of litigating to stop racially discriminatory voting procedures. Fourth, the preclearance provisions have a clear legal standard (retrogression) that was easily understood by state and local governments. That clear legal standard will no longer be applied to covered states and political subdivisions as a result of the Shelby County decision.
The Court’s decision is also a radical act of judicial activism. It is a slap in the face to the congressional authority to enact legislation to enforce the post-Civil War Reconstruction Amendments to the Constitution. As Justice Ginsburg correctly observed in her dissent in the Shelby County case, “It is well established that Congress’ judgment regarding exercise of its power to enforce the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments warrants substantial deference.” The Court failed to afford Congress this “well-established” deference. To illustrate how extreme the decision in Shelby County is, it is worth noting that not since 1883 has the U.S. Supreme Court struck down an act of Congress that was passed to enforce these Amendments.
In its Shelby County ruling, the Court not only cast aside decades of legal precedents, but it also usurped Congress’s role of enforcing those Amendments “by appropriate legislation.” The Court’s decision in the Shelby County case overrode Congress’ decision that the special provisions of the Voting Rights Act were still needed in the covered jurisdictions, substituting its decision for the considered views of Congress that voting discrimination remains particularly acute in the covered areas. Decisions like Shelby County do great harm to the Court as an institution and the traditional respect for the Bench.
Congress should act in a bipartisan manner to update the coverage formula to determine what jurisdictions will be covered by Section 5 and ensure that voters will continue to be protected from the evils of discrimination.
America’s political system
America’s political system has been bought and paid for, making it nearly impossible to get anything done that goes against the interest of deep-pocketed funders. Activists often say that fixing this legalized corruption may not be America’s biggest problem, but it is the most urgent. Author and activist Lawrence Lessig quotes Henry David Thoreau to put it another way: “There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root.” The many challenges facing American democracy today are the branches, Lessig says, but money and politics is at the root of it all.
To combat its influence, Lessig founded the Rootstrikers Campaign. Here are some ways you can get involved:
Get politicians on the record about corruption: In his farewell speech from the Senate, John Kerry said, “the unending chase for money I believe threatens to steal our democracy itself.” Call your representatives and ask them how they feel about the sway money holds over the political system. Then add their thoughts to a crowdsourced database put together by Rootstrikers and The Huffington Post.
Join the Campus Remix Challenge: Are you a student? Rootstrikers is having a competition to find the best, most inventive way of describing how this problem affects your generation. The campaign organizers ask for students to submit any kind of creative presentation about the corrupting influence of money in politics before July 22. The creators of their three favorite submission will receive a bit of tuition assistance.
Learn about fair elections legislation in New York State: Do you live in New York? The state is considering an election reform act that is similar to laws already in place in Maine, Arizona and Connecticut, and could be a model for other states. The “fair elections” legislation has passed the State Assembly, and is being considered in the Senate. Supporters of the bill are encouraging citizens who want campaign finance reform to tell their legislators that they support fair election legislation.
Make corruption your issue: Lawrence Lessig’s TED talk spread far and wide, and although he’s stopped doing it before audiences, it will live on online. The Rootstrikers campaign encourages you to pick up the torch by making the message your own and sharing it with your friends, family and social networks.
Petition the FEC to investigate corruption: Call on the Federal Elections Commission, which oversees political fundraising, to investigate the various abuses that lead to government corruption, including single-candidate super PACs.
To combat its influence, Lessig founded the Rootstrikers Campaign. Here are some ways you can get involved:
Get politicians on the record about corruption: In his farewell speech from the Senate, John Kerry said, “the unending chase for money I believe threatens to steal our democracy itself.” Call your representatives and ask them how they feel about the sway money holds over the political system. Then add their thoughts to a crowdsourced database put together by Rootstrikers and The Huffington Post.
Join the Campus Remix Challenge: Are you a student? Rootstrikers is having a competition to find the best, most inventive way of describing how this problem affects your generation. The campaign organizers ask for students to submit any kind of creative presentation about the corrupting influence of money in politics before July 22. The creators of their three favorite submission will receive a bit of tuition assistance.
Learn about fair elections legislation in New York State: Do you live in New York? The state is considering an election reform act that is similar to laws already in place in Maine, Arizona and Connecticut, and could be a model for other states. The “fair elections” legislation has passed the State Assembly, and is being considered in the Senate. Supporters of the bill are encouraging citizens who want campaign finance reform to tell their legislators that they support fair election legislation.
Make corruption your issue: Lawrence Lessig’s TED talk spread far and wide, and although he’s stopped doing it before audiences, it will live on online. The Rootstrikers campaign encourages you to pick up the torch by making the message your own and sharing it with your friends, family and social networks.
Petition the FEC to investigate corruption: Call on the Federal Elections Commission, which oversees political fundraising, to investigate the various abuses that lead to government corruption, including single-candidate super PACs.
Veil Nebula
I always like to see this nebula, a few interesting object in the sky.
Wisps like this are all that remain visible of a Milky Way star. About 9,000 years ago that star exploded in a supernova leaving the Veil Nebula, also known as the Cygnus Loop. At the time, the expanding cloud was likely as bright as a crescent Moon, remaining visible for weeks to people living at the dawn of recorded history. Today, the resulting supernova remnant has faded and is now visible only through a small telescope directed toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus). The remaining Veil Nebula is physically huge, however, and even though it lies about 1,400 light-years distant, it covers over five times the size of the full Moon. In images like this of the complete Veil Nebula, studious readers should be able to identify several of the individual filaments. A bright wisp at the right is known as the Witch's Broom Nebula.
Wisps like this are all that remain visible of a Milky Way star. About 9,000 years ago that star exploded in a supernova leaving the Veil Nebula, also known as the Cygnus Loop. At the time, the expanding cloud was likely as bright as a crescent Moon, remaining visible for weeks to people living at the dawn of recorded history. Today, the resulting supernova remnant has faded and is now visible only through a small telescope directed toward the constellation of the Swan (Cygnus). The remaining Veil Nebula is physically huge, however, and even though it lies about 1,400 light-years distant, it covers over five times the size of the full Moon. In images like this of the complete Veil Nebula, studious readers should be able to identify several of the individual filaments. A bright wisp at the right is known as the Witch's Broom Nebula.
NGC 3628
America's Cup still up in the air....
Less than two weeks before the challengers series begins in the America's Cup, the regatta's rules are unsettled as the four teams haggle over things like the maximum allowable wind speed for the races.
Regardless of how the dispute plays out, at least one key player is very unhappy that organizers missed a chance to have "the best America's Cup ever." Paul Cayard, a San Francisco native who is CEO of the Swedish team Artemis Racing, said Friday that the 72-foot catamarans being used are too big, too powerful and too dangerous.
 |
| Artemis AC45s out with a 72 in the background |
"San Francisco is one of the windiest venues in the world," he said. "But that's a good thing if you've got the right tool for it. It's a horrible thing if you've got the wrong tool. Right now we've got the wrong tool. We've got a boat that's made for San Diego (where the winds are much lighter), and we're trying to race it in San Francisco."
Cayard is especially peeved at the decision to use a 38-meter (or 131-foot) wing rather than the 32-meter wing that was part of the original class rule, he said. The rules were established three years ago by Larry Ellison's Oracle Team Racing, the defender, and the Italian club Nautico di Roma, then the challenger of record.
Nautico di Roma pulled out of the 2013 competition two years ago. So the rules were already set when the Swedish club that sponsors Artemis took over as the challenger of record.
Originally it was planned that the big catamarans would race in Europe as well as the U.S., with the 38-meter wing only being used in places like Venice that have light winds, Cayard said. Those plans were scrapped because of the prohibitive costs of shipping the big boats.
The decision to stick with the larger wing in San Francisco's powerful winds might have contributed to the Artemis capsizing on May 9 that killed British sailor Andrew "Bart" Simpson.
"Accidents would have been less likely with the 32," Cayard said.
If the Cup had simply used the 45-foot boats that sailed the last two years in the America's Cup World Series, Cayard said, the reduced costs would have enabled probably a dozen teams to mount challenges. "Typically, we have eight and as many as 13 challengers in the America's Cups I've been in," he said.
 |
| Artemis' AC72 is built for San Diego conditions, not choppy, windy San Francisco Bay, says Paul Cayard. |
As Artemis tries to come back from the tragic wreckage, work is still being done on the frame of the new wing at the team's headquarters in what used to be a warehouse in Alameda. Cayard may be hoping to buy more time to get his second boat operational; right now, team officials hope it is sailing by the end of July, but Artemis may have to skip the opening round-robin of the Louis Vuitton Cup series altogether.
Two members of the America's Cup international jury have so far been unsuccessful as mediators in getting the three challengers and Oracle on the same page. They have been working with a list of safety changes recommended by regatta director Iain Murray in the wake of the Artemis accident.
Talks are scheduled to continue Saturday. If an agreement can't be reached, the full five-member jury will decide the case. It would begin hearing arguments Monday morning.
Among the key sticking points is the recommendation that the maximum allowable wind speed for racing be lowered from 33 knots to 23 in the America's Cup finals and from 25 in the Louis Vuitton Cup challenger series to 20 in July and 21 in August.
Emirates Team New Zealand is arguing for a higher speed limit, Cayard said. "They think their boat was built for the high wind speeds, so they want to make everybody race in high wind speeds, even if it's unsafe," he said.
Grant Dalton, CEO of the New Zealand team, said in a statement issued by the team, "It is true that our boat was designed for the higher wind speed published in the rule in October 2010. This upper limit has been reduced by 30 percent, and Emirates Team New Zealand has gone along with this - to its own detriment - in the interests of the event.
"The Artemis incident was tragic, but if Cayard feels that Artemis cannot comply with the significantly reduced wind speed, they should withdraw from the event."
Tom FitzGerald
June 26, 2013
Shaken, not Stirred...
Surfing an ice wave... The wave caused by a chunk of ice falling into water and forming a wave in the freezing water. Kind of crazy.....
Toll Road
Regional Water Quality Control Board DENIES TCA Permit to Construct Toll Road
A massive thanks to all our supporters who came out to the meeting. Your voice and presence made a huge difference in the outcome! Also thanks to our San Diego and South OC Chapters for working so hard to organize the day!
As a member of the Save San Onofre Coalition, Surfrider Foundation has great respect and thanks for our partners at the Natural Resources Defense Council, California State Parks Foundation, Endangered Habitats League, Orange County Coastkeeper, Sierra Club, Audobon, WildCoast and the California Coastal Protection Network. Not to mention our fantastic team of attorneys at Shute Mihaly & Weinberger. This victory could not have happened without all of their scientific, legal and political muscle. This was truly a TEAM effort!
On June 19th, the San Diego Regional Water Quality Control Board voted 3-2 to deny the first segment of the 241 Toll Road extension.
During the standing-room-only hearing, Surfrider Foundation Chapter representatives, staff, supporters and Coalition partners took to the stand one after another to voice their opposition to the first 5.5-mile “segment” of the toll road extension. The project, which was proposed in 2011 just three years after the California Coastal Commission and the Bush Administration shot down the original alignment through San Onofre State Park, calls for the extension of SR-241 to be built in “segments” – five miles at a time. “Segmenting” is illegal under state and federal law.
A massive thanks to all our supporters who came out to the meeting. Your voice and presence made a huge difference in the outcome! Also thanks to our San Diego and South OC Chapters for working so hard to organize the day!
As a member of the Save San Onofre Coalition, Surfrider Foundation has great respect and thanks for our partners at the Natural Resources Defense Council, California State Parks Foundation, Endangered Habitats League, Orange County Coastkeeper, Sierra Club, Audobon, WildCoast and the California Coastal Protection Network. Not to mention our fantastic team of attorneys at Shute Mihaly & Weinberger. This victory could not have happened without all of their scientific, legal and political muscle. This was truly a TEAM effort!
Video of MOD 70 flipping
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CI2iIY61Lc8&feature=player_embedded
Spindrift, one of seven MOD70s built to date, flipped during one of the La Route des Princes inshore races off Dun Lagohaire. It was the first time a MOD70 has flipped. Unlike the tragic flipping of the AC72 Artemis on San Francisco Bay, skipper Yann Guichard didn't hesitate to explain exactly what happened:
"We had 22 to 24 knots of wind at the start line with gusts up to 30 knots at the lower end of the course. We were at the limit of weather conditions for our boats, and it was not great for racing. All the MODs had one reef in the main and staysail. We started a bit below and behind the fleet, and found ourselves slightly in a wind shadow. When our rivals had moved away, we had a sudden gust that flattened us. I was unable to do anything at the helm, the boat was turned over in a single blow. We let out the staysail immediately, but it was too late as it all happened in a split second. The boat was lifted onto the port float and went over. Jacques [Yann's brother] was with me in the cockpit and we found ourselves in the net. We managed to get out and then were airlifted. The mast broke in two when Spindrift turned over. The frame of the trimaran was towed away to port."
Because the MOD70s have soft sails and are a strict one design, they can be built and maintained for a fraction of the cost of just the wing sail for an AC72 catamaran. MOD70s are longer, depowered versions of the ORMA 60 tris and, because they have safely raced across the Atlantic at higher speeds than any vessel under 100 feet, they would se
em to be less likely to flip than the 72s.
Spindrift, one of seven MOD70s built to date, flipped during one of the La Route des Princes inshore races off Dun Lagohaire. It was the first time a MOD70 has flipped. Unlike the tragic flipping of the AC72 Artemis on San Francisco Bay, skipper Yann Guichard didn't hesitate to explain exactly what happened:
"We had 22 to 24 knots of wind at the start line with gusts up to 30 knots at the lower end of the course. We were at the limit of weather conditions for our boats, and it was not great for racing. All the MODs had one reef in the main and staysail. We started a bit below and behind the fleet, and found ourselves slightly in a wind shadow. When our rivals had moved away, we had a sudden gust that flattened us. I was unable to do anything at the helm, the boat was turned over in a single blow. We let out the staysail immediately, but it was too late as it all happened in a split second. The boat was lifted onto the port float and went over. Jacques [Yann's brother] was with me in the cockpit and we found ourselves in the net. We managed to get out and then were airlifted. The mast broke in two when Spindrift turned over. The frame of the trimaran was towed away to port."Because the MOD70s have soft sails and are a strict one design, they can be built and maintained for a fraction of the cost of just the wing sail for an AC72 catamaran. MOD70s are longer, depowered versions of the ORMA 60 tris and, because they have safely raced across the Atlantic at higher speeds than any vessel under 100 feet, they would se
em to be less likely to flip than the 72s.
Wipe the Slate Clean
By Strike Debt
Student debt is a real growing economic and moral crisis. The conventional debate over solutions to this crisis has been anemic. The boundaries have been clearly drawn and options restricted to tinkering with interest rates. We need solutions that actually address the principal of the loans and prevent a new student debt crisis from bubbling up again. For instance: a student debt jubilee and the restoration of education as a common good.If that sounds utopian, ask a baby boomer who went to an in-state public college or university how much debt they went into to finance their education.
Today, after decades of cuts in state funding, debt-financed higher education is exacerbating the U.S.’s already extreme level of economic inequality. As it stands, students from low-income homes are regularly charged more than a third of their family’s annual earnings for a year of tuition at a public college. Extracting excessive interest to capitalize on the mortgaged futures of the 99 percent is repugnant, but Democrats’ efforts to lower rates will — at best — bring defaults under control, offering life support to a broken system in which all but the privileged few must incur crushing, life-altering debts to receive an education while loan servicers, speculators and administrators profit from their misery.
We can resuscitate our public university system and restore opportunity to millions, it’s simply a matter of priorities. For the money spent so far on the ten years of war in Iraq, we could provide completely free public higher education at every single two and four year school in the country — for the next 58 years. For those already suffering under the burden of student debt, we call for a one-time jubilee — a mass cancellation of debts. Wiping the slate clean. Each generation that graduates into a lifetime of debt is a lost generation. Student debtors are less likely to start families, choose public service careers or be able to build their lives in ways that include more than just following a plan to repay loans. With a trillion dollars of student debt dragging down the economy as a whole, a jubilee is the only realistic solution for an economic turnaround. Jubilees work. Just ask Iceland, which offered a qualified jubilee on mortgages and rebounded from the mortgage crisis faster than any other country.
Until the conventional debate is opened up to include alternatives that genuinely reflect the needs of the 99 percent, we see collective resistance and refusal as the tactics most likely to succeed. Forty-three percent of Americans under 25 already have student debt, and debt burdens for those 60 and older are skyrocketing. Though what’s left of the white middle class has surely not been spared, the rate of Black and Latino students graduating with unmanageable debt burdens is around 20 percent higher than that of their white counterparts. Indebted women and disabled folks who enter the workforce will also have a hard time keeping up with payments given the significant gap in wages they’ll encounter. Student debt is a tie that binds people from all corners of the 99 percent. It’s only a matter of time until we shake off the shackles of shame and isolation and realize our collective power.
Poverty
During a speech at Stanford University in 1967, one year before he was assassinated, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. said, “there are literally two Americas. One America is beautiful… overflowing with the milk of prosperity and the honey of opportunity.
“But tragically and unfortunately, there is another America. This other America has a daily ugliness about it that constantly transforms the ebullience of hope into the fatigue of despair. In this America millions of work-starved men walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do not exist. In this America millions of people find themselves living in rat-infested, vermin-filled slums. In this America people are poor by the millions. They find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.”
Not much has changed since 1967.
Take a look at these chart about American poverty from King’s day through today using data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
When King delivered his “Two Americas” speech, a household in the top five percent income bracket was at least six times wealthier than a household in the bottom twenty percent. Since the late 1960s, the rich have been growing wealthier far more quickly than the poor.
During the 1960s, poverty declined in the United States, partially because of a thriving economy and partially because of the measures implemented during President Johnson’s War on Poverty, but a significant portion of Americans were still living in poverty by the end of the decade. The year King died, the poverty rate was 12.8 percent. Five years later, in 1973, it hit a low of 11.1 percent. But today, 15 percent — roughly a sixth — of Americans live in poverty.
Families headed by single mothers suffer worst. In King’s time and still today, a family headed by a single mother is roughly three times as likely to be impoverished. Roughly a third of all families headed by a single mother live in poverty today.
Racial economic inequality was even more dramatic in King’s day, but poverty is still heavily determined by race. Over a quarter of black and Latino Americans are below the poverty line, compared with only about a tenth of whites.
Today, about 16 million children live in poverty. These figures too are heavily determined by race. Children are far more likely to be impoverished than adults. Thirty-seven percent of black children and thirty-four percent of Latino children live in poverty today.
“But tragically and unfortunately, there is another America. This other America has a daily ugliness about it that constantly transforms the ebullience of hope into the fatigue of despair. In this America millions of work-starved men walk the streets daily in search for jobs that do not exist. In this America millions of people find themselves living in rat-infested, vermin-filled slums. In this America people are poor by the millions. They find themselves perishing on a lonely island of poverty in the midst of a vast ocean of material prosperity.”Not much has changed since 1967.
Take a look at these chart about American poverty from King’s day through today using data from the U.S. Census Bureau.
When King delivered his “Two Americas” speech, a household in the top five percent income bracket was at least six times wealthier than a household in the bottom twenty percent. Since the late 1960s, the rich have been growing wealthier far more quickly than the poor.
During the 1960s, poverty declined in the United States, partially because of a thriving economy and partially because of the measures implemented during President Johnson’s War on Poverty, but a significant portion of Americans were still living in poverty by the end of the decade. The year King died, the poverty rate was 12.8 percent. Five years later, in 1973, it hit a low of 11.1 percent. But today, 15 percent — roughly a sixth — of Americans live in poverty.
Families headed by single mothers suffer worst. In King’s time and still today, a family headed by a single mother is roughly three times as likely to be impoverished. Roughly a third of all families headed by a single mother live in poverty today.
Racial economic inequality was even more dramatic in King’s day, but poverty is still heavily determined by race. Over a quarter of black and Latino Americans are below the poverty line, compared with only about a tenth of whites.
Today, about 16 million children live in poverty. These figures too are heavily determined by race. Children are far more likely to be impoverished than adults. Thirty-seven percent of black children and thirty-four percent of Latino children live in poverty today.
Getting Richer......
Since 2009, income growth among the majority of Americans has remained relatively stagnant. But an updated version of economist Emmanuel Saez’s study, “Striking it Richer,” shows that this is not true for the top one percent of Americans.
The study found that since the recovery began in 2009, while the bottom 99 percent of Americans’ incomes have fallen by 0.4 percent since the recovery began in 2009, the top one percent’s incomes have risen by 11.2 percent. So the recovery is only truly a recovery for the wealthiest Americans.
Since the 1970s, the wealthiest one percent increasingly have earned a larger and larger share of America’s income. The recession in the early 2000s and the “Great Recession” starting in 2007 decreased their earnings, but — as the chart below shows — the top one percent still earned more than the next four percent of income earners combined. And since the recovery began in 2009, the top one percent’s incomes have bounced back more than that of any other percentile.
“The labor market has been creating much more inequality over the last thirty years, with the very top earners capturing a large fraction of macroeconomic productivity gains,” writes Saez, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley. He received the John Bates Clark Medal — an award similar to the Nobel Prize given for economics — in part for his research on income inequality with Thomas Piketty, an economist at the Paris School of Economics.
Income inequality falls during recessions, but typically bounces strongly back again. After the Great Depression and during World War II, Saez writes, a number of factors kept income concentration from growing, “such as progressive tax policies, powerful unions, corporate provision of health and retirement benefits and changing social norms regarding pay equality.” But this time, the same factors aren’t in place.
Saez writes, “The policy changes that are taking place coming out of the Great Recession (financial regulation and top tax rate increase in 2013) are not negligible but they are modest relative to the policy changes that took place coming out of the Great Depression. Therefore, it seems unlikely that U.S. income concentration will fall much in the coming years.
“We need to decide as a society whether this increase in income inequality is efficient and acceptable and, if not, what mix of institutional and tax reforms should be developed to counter it.”
The study found that since the recovery began in 2009, while the bottom 99 percent of Americans’ incomes have fallen by 0.4 percent since the recovery began in 2009, the top one percent’s incomes have risen by 11.2 percent. So the recovery is only truly a recovery for the wealthiest Americans.Since the 1970s, the wealthiest one percent increasingly have earned a larger and larger share of America’s income. The recession in the early 2000s and the “Great Recession” starting in 2007 decreased their earnings, but — as the chart below shows — the top one percent still earned more than the next four percent of income earners combined. And since the recovery began in 2009, the top one percent’s incomes have bounced back more than that of any other percentile.
“The labor market has been creating much more inequality over the last thirty years, with the very top earners capturing a large fraction of macroeconomic productivity gains,” writes Saez, an economist at the University of California, Berkeley. He received the John Bates Clark Medal — an award similar to the Nobel Prize given for economics — in part for his research on income inequality with Thomas Piketty, an economist at the Paris School of Economics.
Income inequality falls during recessions, but typically bounces strongly back again. After the Great Depression and during World War II, Saez writes, a number of factors kept income concentration from growing, “such as progressive tax policies, powerful unions, corporate provision of health and retirement benefits and changing social norms regarding pay equality.” But this time, the same factors aren’t in place.
Saez writes, “The policy changes that are taking place coming out of the Great Recession (financial regulation and top tax rate increase in 2013) are not negligible but they are modest relative to the policy changes that took place coming out of the Great Depression. Therefore, it seems unlikely that U.S. income concentration will fall much in the coming years.
“We need to decide as a society whether this increase in income inequality is efficient and acceptable and, if not, what mix of institutional and tax reforms should be developed to counter it.”
Drinks on Saturday
Saturday night I went out and visited a couple of places, one was a bar that was underground in the basement of an older building (Cellar Bar). They had a band playing and it was really good until the main act came on, a kind of night club act that was actually really boring. Decided to leave and go to another place the specialized in Spanish Coffee (Huber’s). They do a table side show of pouring and making the coffee drink. Lots of Rum and it taste good, though a bit pricey.
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| Cellar BAr |
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| Spanish Coffee |
Washing the deck
A new meaning for decks a-wash... Unfortunately this boat sank at the dock because of pour maintenance and not being checked on.
A nasty guy says some...
Robber Barons Still Alive and Well in Newport
"First Marblehead" of Mass. is under investigation by the State of N.Y. regarding its student loan practices. Congress is also planning on holding investigative hearings. Sen. Kennedy's proposed Student Loan Sunshine Act is an attempt to reign in large profits at students' expense. Lest you are not up-to-date, the 20 billion dollar student loan industry is quite lucrative. These loans are easily obtained (95% approval rate) and can be done on-line with no co-signers. They are also more appealing because of the low cap on fed'l loans and the downturn of the housing market. Parents are no longer able to borrow on appreciated housing values.
'"Last year private loans amounted to some $17 billion of the $85 billion in total new student loans; government-backed loans, which First Marblehead doesn't handle, made up the rest."'
First Marblehead does not loan money itself. It acts as a middleman for those needing loans and those giving loans with as much as a 13% advisory fee up front. These loans are packaged and sold. First Marblehead does not service accounts.
Former CEO & Chairman Daniel M. Meyer (a former member of that much-beleaguered class), a major stockholder, is a prominent new Newporter who specializes in purchasing large estates, golfing, and yachting. He does this with monies realized from packaging loans offered to students, often with college logos affixed to them inviting students to believe that these are cheap loans offered through colleges' benefices. Presently he is demolishing a ten million dollar 45 acre estate on Ocean Drive, "Avalon" and is thinking of purchasing the next-door estate. Good place for a new-age robber baron. Ah, but don't forget, he's also contributing money to Lucy's Heath while doing so. Not many of us can turn a building project into a charitable contribution (donating salvaged materials' income) to help with our taxes (sigh).
Meyers (age 42) was forced to (voluntarily) resign after giving gifts of over $30,000 value to a loan officer - one of his companies biggest clients. '"Meyers, known in the investment community as Jabba the Hutt because of his girth and cantankerous disposition, was forced to step down from his executive post, though he remains a major shareholder of the company."' These are verbotten as they tend to look a lot like bribes or kickbacks. Hey, he's just a generous guy.
Students now graduate with an average of $20,000 in loans, and as I learned last summer in knocking on doors, MANY in New England with its pricey colleges owe a lot more, many of them private loans. The average indebteness of college students has more than doubled in the past decade.
A high percentage of these students apply for private loans without ever filling out the forms (estimated 20%) for the much lower priced federal loans. I would attribute this to the LENGTHY and complex form the gov't in its great wisdom provides. They then turn to the private market, not realizing the extra monies (inc. fees) involved. These loans charge up to 4 pts. more than a gov't loan plus fees. '"Today, the average rate in the First Marblehead pool is nearly 11 percent. Interest rates on federal loans, by contrast, are capped at 6.8 percent. "' And these loans, unlike federal ones, are NOT wiped out by bankruptcy. Hey, someone has to pay for the Bentley.
While it is not legal for colleges to accept incentives for government loans, not so with private ones. Salve Regina just paid a fine $26,000 fine for listing some of these loan originators as "preferred" loans while not revealing that they rec'd inventive for doing so. Students and parents often do not realize that they would be better off shopping around.
'"The student loan industry could be in for more jolts. Policy makers and regulators say that there are dangerous parallels between the private student loan and subprime mortgage markets. In both, there have been phenomenal profits, aggressive marketing and, until the recent credit market turmoil, a healthy appetite from Wall Street investors."' These are bottom feeders who hungrily sucked in huge amounts of monies while Congress & regulators slept. They made plenty of monies for themselves while others are/were left holding the bag.
"First Marblehead" is now forced to submit documents regarding to this former CEO and its lending practices going back six years. Did I mention that it's stock which had been doing phenomenally well is no longer doing so?
Two district beneficiaries of Mr. Meyer's largess were Newport Councilors Charles Duncan and Steve Waluk who each rec'd maximum $1000 contributions from him in the last election - guess he's a Republican (go figure). Wonder if they'll return them?
'“There have been populations of students who have been overleveraged for 40 years,” he says. “The bigger problem is that we have students who have been underleveraged.”' Students? Underleveredged? That means your college education gives you a learning potential. You should leverage this with loans. As earnings for potential grads declines, you are being encouraged to incur greater debt that ever. '"Please note carefully that Fleece U degree cannot guarantee you a future income that will allow you to pay off your debts. Many of our most promising graduates are now, three or four years later, working for $8-12 an hour serving up lattés, counseling disturbed youth or creating business computer networks. They are set for a lifetime of debt, and we are proud that they first began to accrue it right here, on our lovely mock Oxfordian campus."'
So the next time you stand on the shore watching him sail by in his 60 ft. yacht, "Numbers" (he has two smaller yachts) give him a wave. And thank him for the recent donation of 20 mil to the Univ. of Va. After all, some of that college debt you're paying off may well have helped obtain his share of the American dream. And if you can't yet afford it (and you many never be able to), know that at the very least, you are "well leveraged."
'"Last year private loans amounted to some $17 billion of the $85 billion in total new student loans; government-backed loans, which First Marblehead doesn't handle, made up the rest."'
First Marblehead does not loan money itself. It acts as a middleman for those needing loans and those giving loans with as much as a 13% advisory fee up front. These loans are packaged and sold. First Marblehead does not service accounts.
Former CEO & Chairman Daniel M. Meyer (a former member of that much-beleaguered class), a major stockholder, is a prominent new Newporter who specializes in purchasing large estates, golfing, and yachting. He does this with monies realized from packaging loans offered to students, often with college logos affixed to them inviting students to believe that these are cheap loans offered through colleges' benefices. Presently he is demolishing a ten million dollar 45 acre estate on Ocean Drive, "Avalon" and is thinking of purchasing the next-door estate. Good place for a new-age robber baron. Ah, but don't forget, he's also contributing money to Lucy's Heath while doing so. Not many of us can turn a building project into a charitable contribution (donating salvaged materials' income) to help with our taxes (sigh).
Meyers (age 42) was forced to (voluntarily) resign after giving gifts of over $30,000 value to a loan officer - one of his companies biggest clients. '"Meyers, known in the investment community as Jabba the Hutt because of his girth and cantankerous disposition, was forced to step down from his executive post, though he remains a major shareholder of the company."' These are verbotten as they tend to look a lot like bribes or kickbacks. Hey, he's just a generous guy.
Students now graduate with an average of $20,000 in loans, and as I learned last summer in knocking on doors, MANY in New England with its pricey colleges owe a lot more, many of them private loans. The average indebteness of college students has more than doubled in the past decade.
A high percentage of these students apply for private loans without ever filling out the forms (estimated 20%) for the much lower priced federal loans. I would attribute this to the LENGTHY and complex form the gov't in its great wisdom provides. They then turn to the private market, not realizing the extra monies (inc. fees) involved. These loans charge up to 4 pts. more than a gov't loan plus fees. '"Today, the average rate in the First Marblehead pool is nearly 11 percent. Interest rates on federal loans, by contrast, are capped at 6.8 percent. "' And these loans, unlike federal ones, are NOT wiped out by bankruptcy. Hey, someone has to pay for the Bentley.
While it is not legal for colleges to accept incentives for government loans, not so with private ones. Salve Regina just paid a fine $26,000 fine for listing some of these loan originators as "preferred" loans while not revealing that they rec'd inventive for doing so. Students and parents often do not realize that they would be better off shopping around.
'"The student loan industry could be in for more jolts. Policy makers and regulators say that there are dangerous parallels between the private student loan and subprime mortgage markets. In both, there have been phenomenal profits, aggressive marketing and, until the recent credit market turmoil, a healthy appetite from Wall Street investors."' These are bottom feeders who hungrily sucked in huge amounts of monies while Congress & regulators slept. They made plenty of monies for themselves while others are/were left holding the bag.
"First Marblehead" is now forced to submit documents regarding to this former CEO and its lending practices going back six years. Did I mention that it's stock which had been doing phenomenally well is no longer doing so?
Two district beneficiaries of Mr. Meyer's largess were Newport Councilors Charles Duncan and Steve Waluk who each rec'd maximum $1000 contributions from him in the last election - guess he's a Republican (go figure). Wonder if they'll return them?
'“There have been populations of students who have been overleveraged for 40 years,” he says. “The bigger problem is that we have students who have been underleveraged.”' Students? Underleveredged? That means your college education gives you a learning potential. You should leverage this with loans. As earnings for potential grads declines, you are being encouraged to incur greater debt that ever. '"Please note carefully that Fleece U degree cannot guarantee you a future income that will allow you to pay off your debts. Many of our most promising graduates are now, three or four years later, working for $8-12 an hour serving up lattés, counseling disturbed youth or creating business computer networks. They are set for a lifetime of debt, and we are proud that they first began to accrue it right here, on our lovely mock Oxfordian campus."'
So the next time you stand on the shore watching him sail by in his 60 ft. yacht, "Numbers" (he has two smaller yachts) give him a wave. And thank him for the recent donation of 20 mil to the Univ. of Va. After all, some of that college debt you're paying off may well have helped obtain his share of the American dream. And if you can't yet afford it (and you many never be able to), know that at the very least, you are "well leveraged."
Posted by Eileen Rice
June 25, 2013
Dirty oil and Warming..
by Bill McKibben:
A few weeks ago, Time magazine called the fight over the Keystone XL pipeline that will bring some of the dirtiest energy on the planet from Alberta, Canada, to the U.S. Gulf Coast the “Selma and Stonewall” of the climate movement.
Which, if you think about it, may be both good news and bad news. Yes, those of us fighting the pipeline have mobilized record numbers of activists: the largest civil disobedience action in 30 years and 40,000 people on the mall in February for the biggest climate rally in American history. Right now, we’re aiming to get a million people to send in public comments about the “environmental review” the State Department is conducting on the feasibility and advisability of building the pipeline. And there’s good reason to put pressure on. After all, it’s the same State Department that, as on a previous round of reviews, hired “experts” who had once worked as consultants for TransCanada, the pipeline’s builder.
Still, let’s put things in perspective: Stonewall took place in 1969, and as of last week the Supreme Court was still trying to decide if gay people should be allowed to marry each other. If the climate movement takes that long, we’ll be rallying in scuba masks. (I’m not kidding. The section of the Washington Mall where we rallied against the pipeline this winter already has a big construction project underway: a flood barrier to keep the rising Potomac River out of downtown DC.)
It was certainly joyful to see marriage equality being considered by our top judicial body. In some ways, however, the most depressing spectacle of the week was watching Democratic leaders decide that, in 2013, it was finally safe to proclaim gay people actual human beings. In one weekend, Democratic senators Mark Warner of Virginia, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia figured out that they had “evolved” on the issue. And Bill Clinton, the greatest weathervane who ever lived, finally decided that the Defense of Marriage Act he had signed into law, boasted about in ads on Christian radio, and urged candidate John Kerry to defend as constitutional in 2004, was, you know, wrong. He, too, had “evolved,” once the polls made it clear that such an evolution was a safe bet.
Why recite all this history? Because for me, the hardest part of the Keystone pipeline fight has been figuring out what in the world to do about the Democrats.
Let’s begin by stipulating that, taken as a whole, they’re better than the Republicans. About a year ago, in his initial campaign ad of the general election, Mitt Romney declared that his first act in office would be to approve Keystone and that, if necessary, he would “build it myself.” (A charming image, it must be said). Every Republican in the Senate voted on a nonbinding resolution to approve the pipeline — every single one. In other words, their unity in subservience to the fossil fuel industry is complete, and almost compelling. At the least, you know exactly what you’re getting from them.
With the Democrats, not so much. Seventeen of their Senate caucus — about a third — joined the GOP in voting to approve Keystone XL. As the Washington insider website Politico proclaimed in a headline the next day, “Obama’s Achilles Heel on Climate: Senate Democrats.”
Which actually may have been generous to the president. It’s not at all clear that he wants to stop the Keystone pipeline (though he has the power to do so himself, no matter what the Senate may want), or for that matter do anything else very difficult when it comes to climate change. His new secretary of state, John Kerry, issued a preliminary environmental impact statement on the pipeline so fraught with errors that it took scientists and policy wonks about 20 minutes to shred its math.
Administration insiders keep insisting, ominously enough, that the president doesn’t think Keystone is a very big deal. Indeed, despite his amped-up post-election rhetoric on climate change, he continues to insist on an “all-of-the-above” energy policy which, as renowned climate scientistJames Hansen pointed out in his valedictory shortly before retiring from NASA last week, simply can’t be squared with basic climate-change math.
All these men and women have excuses for their climate conservatism. To name just two: the oil industry has endless resources and they’re scared about reelection losses. Such excuses are perfectly realistic and pragmatic, as far as they go: if you can’t get re-elected, you can’t do even marginal good and you certainly can’t block right-wing craziness. But they also hide a deep affection for oil industry money, which turns out to be an even better predictor of voting records than party affiliation.
Anyway, aren’t all those apologias wearing thin as Arctic sea ice melts with startling, planet-changing speed? It was bad enough to take four decades simply to warm up to the idea of gay rights. Innumerable lives were blighted in those in-between years, and given long-lasting official unconcern about AIDS, innumerable lives were lost. At least, however, inaction didn’t make the problem harder to solve: if the Supreme Court decides gay people should be able to marry, then they’ll be able to marry.
Unlike gay rights or similar issues of basic human justice and fairness, climate change comes with a time limit. Go past a certain point, and we may no longer be able to affect the outcome in ways that will prevent long-term global catastrophe. We’re clearly nearing that limit and so the essential cowardice of too many Democrats is becoming an ever more fundamental problem that needs to be faced. We lack the decades needed for their positions to “evolve” along with the polling numbers. What we need, desperately, is for them to pitch in and help lead the transition in public opinion and public policy.
Instead, at best they insist on fiddling around the edges, while the planet prepares to burn. The newly formed Organizing for Action, for instance — an effort to turn Barack Obama’s fundraising list into a kind of quasi-official MoveOn.org — has taken up climate change as one of its goals. Instead of joining with the actual movement around the Keystone pipeline or turning to other central organizing issues, however, it evidently plans to devote more energy to house parties to put solar panels on people’s roofs. That’s great, but there’s no way such a “movement” will profoundly alter the trajectory of climate math, a task that instead requires deep structural reform of exactly the kind that makes the administration and Congressional “moderates” nervous.
So far, the Democrats are showing some willingness to face the issues that matter only when it comes to coal. After a decade of concentrated assault by activists led by the Sierra Club, the coal industry is now badly weakened: plans for more than 100 new coal-fired power plants have disappeared from anyone’s drawing board. So, post-election, the White House finally seems willing to take on the industry at least in modest ways, including possibly with new Environmental Protection Agency regulations that could start closing down existing coal-fired plants (though even that approach now seems delayed).
Recently, I had a long talk with an administration insider who kept telling me that, for the next decade, we should focus all our energies on “killing coal.” Why? Because it was politically feasible.
And indeed we should, but climate-change science makes it clear that we need to put the same sort of thought and creative energy into killing oil and natural gas, too. I mean, the Arctic — from Greenland to its seas — essentially melted last summer in a way never before seen. The frozen Arctic is like a large physical feature. It’s as if you woke up one morning and your left arm was missing. You’d panic.
There is, however, no panic in Washington. Instead, the administration and Democratic moderates are reveling in new oil finds in North Dakota and in the shale gas now flowing out of Appalachia, even though exploiting both of these energy supplies is likely to lock us into more decades of fossil fuel use. They’re pleased as punch that we’re getting nearer to “energy independence.” Unfortunately, energy independence was last century’s worry. It dates back to the crises set off by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in the early 1970s, not long after… Stonewall.
So what to do? The narrow window of opportunity that physics provides us makes me doubt that a third party will offer a fast enough answer to come to terms with our changing planet. The Green Party certainly offered the soundest platform in our last elections, and in Germany and Australia the Greens have been decisive in nudging coalition governments towards carbon commitments. But those are parliamentary systems. Here, so far, national third parties have been more likely to serve as spoilers than as wedges (though it’s been an enlightening pleasure to engage with New York’s Working Families Party, or the Progressives in Vermont). It’s not clear to me how that will effectively lead to changes during the few years we’ve got left to deal with carbon. Climate science enforces a certain brute realism. It makes it harder to follow one’s heart.
Along with some way to make a third party truly viable, we need a genuine movement for fundamental governmental reform — not just a change in the Senate’s filibuster rules, but publicly funded elections, an end to the idea that corporations are citizens, and genuine constraints on revolving-door lobbyists. These are crucial matters, and it is wonderful to see broad new campaigns underway around them. It’s entirely possible that there’s no way to do what needs doing about climate change in this country without them. But even their most optimistic proponents talk in terms of several election cycles, when the scientists tell us that we have no hope of holding the rise in the planetary temperature below two degrees unless global emissions peak by 2015.
Of course, climate-change activists can and should continue to work to make the Democrats better. At the moment, for instance, the 350.org action fund is organizing college students for the Massachusetts primary later this month. One senatorial candidate, Steven Lynch, voted to build the Keystone pipeline, and that’s not okay. Maybe electing his opponent, Ed Markey, will send at least a small signal. In fact, this strategy got considerably more promising in the last few days when California hedge fund manager and big-time Democratic donor Tom Steyer announced that he was not only going to go after Lynch, but any politician of any party who didn’t take climate change seriously. “The goal here is not to win. The goal here is to destroy these people,” he said, demonstrating precisely the level of rhetoric (and spending) that might actually start to shake things up.
It will take a while, though. According to press reports, Obama explained to the environmentalists at a fundraiser Steyer hosted that “the politics of this are tough,” because “if your house is still underwater,” then global warming is “probably not rising to your number one concern.”
By underwater, he meant: worth less than the mortgage. At this rate, however, it won’t be long before presidents who use that phrase actually mean “underwater.” Obama closed his remarks by saying something that perfectly summed up the problem of our moment. Dealing with climate change, he said, is “going to take people in Washington who are willing to speak truth to power, are willing to take some risks politically, are willing to get a little bit out ahead of the curve — not two miles ahead of the curve, but just a little bit ahead of it.”
That pretty much defines the Democrats: just a little bit ahead, not as bad as Bush, doing what we can.
And so, as I turn this problem over and over in my head, I keep coming to the same conclusion: we probably need to think, most of the time, about how to change the country, not the Democrats. If we build a movement strong enough to transform the national mood, then perhaps the trembling leaders of the Democrats will eventually follow. I mean, “evolve.” At which point we’ll get an end to things like the Keystone pipeline, and maybe even a price on carbon. That seems to be the lesson of Stonewall and of Selma. The movement is what matters; the Democrats are, at best, the eventual vehicle for closing the deal.
The closest thing I’ve got to a guru on American politics is my senator, Bernie Sanders. He deals with the Democrat problem all the time. He’s an independent, but he caucuses with them, which means he’s locked in the same weird dance as the rest of us working for real change.
A few weeks ago, I gave the keynote address at a global warming summit he convened in Vermont’s state capital, and afterwards I confessed to him my perplexity. “I can’t think of anything we can do except keep trying to build a big movement,” I said. “A movement vast enough to scare or hearten the weak-kneed.”
“There’s nothing else that’s ever going to do it,” he replied.
And so, down to work.
A few weeks ago, Time magazine called the fight over the Keystone XL pipeline that will bring some of the dirtiest energy on the planet from Alberta, Canada, to the U.S. Gulf Coast the “Selma and Stonewall” of the climate movement.
Which, if you think about it, may be both good news and bad news. Yes, those of us fighting the pipeline have mobilized record numbers of activists: the largest civil disobedience action in 30 years and 40,000 people on the mall in February for the biggest climate rally in American history. Right now, we’re aiming to get a million people to send in public comments about the “environmental review” the State Department is conducting on the feasibility and advisability of building the pipeline. And there’s good reason to put pressure on. After all, it’s the same State Department that, as on a previous round of reviews, hired “experts” who had once worked as consultants for TransCanada, the pipeline’s builder.
Still, let’s put things in perspective: Stonewall took place in 1969, and as of last week the Supreme Court was still trying to decide if gay people should be allowed to marry each other. If the climate movement takes that long, we’ll be rallying in scuba masks. (I’m not kidding. The section of the Washington Mall where we rallied against the pipeline this winter already has a big construction project underway: a flood barrier to keep the rising Potomac River out of downtown DC.)
It was certainly joyful to see marriage equality being considered by our top judicial body. In some ways, however, the most depressing spectacle of the week was watching Democratic leaders decide that, in 2013, it was finally safe to proclaim gay people actual human beings. In one weekend, Democratic senators Mark Warner of Virginia, Claire McCaskill of Missouri, Tim Johnson of South Dakota and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia figured out that they had “evolved” on the issue. And Bill Clinton, the greatest weathervane who ever lived, finally decided that the Defense of Marriage Act he had signed into law, boasted about in ads on Christian radio, and urged candidate John Kerry to defend as constitutional in 2004, was, you know, wrong. He, too, had “evolved,” once the polls made it clear that such an evolution was a safe bet.
Why recite all this history? Because for me, the hardest part of the Keystone pipeline fight has been figuring out what in the world to do about the Democrats.
Let’s begin by stipulating that, taken as a whole, they’re better than the Republicans. About a year ago, in his initial campaign ad of the general election, Mitt Romney declared that his first act in office would be to approve Keystone and that, if necessary, he would “build it myself.” (A charming image, it must be said). Every Republican in the Senate voted on a nonbinding resolution to approve the pipeline — every single one. In other words, their unity in subservience to the fossil fuel industry is complete, and almost compelling. At the least, you know exactly what you’re getting from them.
With the Democrats, not so much. Seventeen of their Senate caucus — about a third — joined the GOP in voting to approve Keystone XL. As the Washington insider website Politico proclaimed in a headline the next day, “Obama’s Achilles Heel on Climate: Senate Democrats.”
Which actually may have been generous to the president. It’s not at all clear that he wants to stop the Keystone pipeline (though he has the power to do so himself, no matter what the Senate may want), or for that matter do anything else very difficult when it comes to climate change. His new secretary of state, John Kerry, issued a preliminary environmental impact statement on the pipeline so fraught with errors that it took scientists and policy wonks about 20 minutes to shred its math.
Administration insiders keep insisting, ominously enough, that the president doesn’t think Keystone is a very big deal. Indeed, despite his amped-up post-election rhetoric on climate change, he continues to insist on an “all-of-the-above” energy policy which, as renowned climate scientistJames Hansen pointed out in his valedictory shortly before retiring from NASA last week, simply can’t be squared with basic climate-change math.
All these men and women have excuses for their climate conservatism. To name just two: the oil industry has endless resources and they’re scared about reelection losses. Such excuses are perfectly realistic and pragmatic, as far as they go: if you can’t get re-elected, you can’t do even marginal good and you certainly can’t block right-wing craziness. But they also hide a deep affection for oil industry money, which turns out to be an even better predictor of voting records than party affiliation.
Anyway, aren’t all those apologias wearing thin as Arctic sea ice melts with startling, planet-changing speed? It was bad enough to take four decades simply to warm up to the idea of gay rights. Innumerable lives were blighted in those in-between years, and given long-lasting official unconcern about AIDS, innumerable lives were lost. At least, however, inaction didn’t make the problem harder to solve: if the Supreme Court decides gay people should be able to marry, then they’ll be able to marry.
Unlike gay rights or similar issues of basic human justice and fairness, climate change comes with a time limit. Go past a certain point, and we may no longer be able to affect the outcome in ways that will prevent long-term global catastrophe. We’re clearly nearing that limit and so the essential cowardice of too many Democrats is becoming an ever more fundamental problem that needs to be faced. We lack the decades needed for their positions to “evolve” along with the polling numbers. What we need, desperately, is for them to pitch in and help lead the transition in public opinion and public policy.
Instead, at best they insist on fiddling around the edges, while the planet prepares to burn. The newly formed Organizing for Action, for instance — an effort to turn Barack Obama’s fundraising list into a kind of quasi-official MoveOn.org — has taken up climate change as one of its goals. Instead of joining with the actual movement around the Keystone pipeline or turning to other central organizing issues, however, it evidently plans to devote more energy to house parties to put solar panels on people’s roofs. That’s great, but there’s no way such a “movement” will profoundly alter the trajectory of climate math, a task that instead requires deep structural reform of exactly the kind that makes the administration and Congressional “moderates” nervous.
So far, the Democrats are showing some willingness to face the issues that matter only when it comes to coal. After a decade of concentrated assault by activists led by the Sierra Club, the coal industry is now badly weakened: plans for more than 100 new coal-fired power plants have disappeared from anyone’s drawing board. So, post-election, the White House finally seems willing to take on the industry at least in modest ways, including possibly with new Environmental Protection Agency regulations that could start closing down existing coal-fired plants (though even that approach now seems delayed).
Recently, I had a long talk with an administration insider who kept telling me that, for the next decade, we should focus all our energies on “killing coal.” Why? Because it was politically feasible.
And indeed we should, but climate-change science makes it clear that we need to put the same sort of thought and creative energy into killing oil and natural gas, too. I mean, the Arctic — from Greenland to its seas — essentially melted last summer in a way never before seen. The frozen Arctic is like a large physical feature. It’s as if you woke up one morning and your left arm was missing. You’d panic.
There is, however, no panic in Washington. Instead, the administration and Democratic moderates are reveling in new oil finds in North Dakota and in the shale gas now flowing out of Appalachia, even though exploiting both of these energy supplies is likely to lock us into more decades of fossil fuel use. They’re pleased as punch that we’re getting nearer to “energy independence.” Unfortunately, energy independence was last century’s worry. It dates back to the crises set off by the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries in the early 1970s, not long after… Stonewall.
So what to do? The narrow window of opportunity that physics provides us makes me doubt that a third party will offer a fast enough answer to come to terms with our changing planet. The Green Party certainly offered the soundest platform in our last elections, and in Germany and Australia the Greens have been decisive in nudging coalition governments towards carbon commitments. But those are parliamentary systems. Here, so far, national third parties have been more likely to serve as spoilers than as wedges (though it’s been an enlightening pleasure to engage with New York’s Working Families Party, or the Progressives in Vermont). It’s not clear to me how that will effectively lead to changes during the few years we’ve got left to deal with carbon. Climate science enforces a certain brute realism. It makes it harder to follow one’s heart.
Along with some way to make a third party truly viable, we need a genuine movement for fundamental governmental reform — not just a change in the Senate’s filibuster rules, but publicly funded elections, an end to the idea that corporations are citizens, and genuine constraints on revolving-door lobbyists. These are crucial matters, and it is wonderful to see broad new campaigns underway around them. It’s entirely possible that there’s no way to do what needs doing about climate change in this country without them. But even their most optimistic proponents talk in terms of several election cycles, when the scientists tell us that we have no hope of holding the rise in the planetary temperature below two degrees unless global emissions peak by 2015.
Of course, climate-change activists can and should continue to work to make the Democrats better. At the moment, for instance, the 350.org action fund is organizing college students for the Massachusetts primary later this month. One senatorial candidate, Steven Lynch, voted to build the Keystone pipeline, and that’s not okay. Maybe electing his opponent, Ed Markey, will send at least a small signal. In fact, this strategy got considerably more promising in the last few days when California hedge fund manager and big-time Democratic donor Tom Steyer announced that he was not only going to go after Lynch, but any politician of any party who didn’t take climate change seriously. “The goal here is not to win. The goal here is to destroy these people,” he said, demonstrating precisely the level of rhetoric (and spending) that might actually start to shake things up.
It will take a while, though. According to press reports, Obama explained to the environmentalists at a fundraiser Steyer hosted that “the politics of this are tough,” because “if your house is still underwater,” then global warming is “probably not rising to your number one concern.”
By underwater, he meant: worth less than the mortgage. At this rate, however, it won’t be long before presidents who use that phrase actually mean “underwater.” Obama closed his remarks by saying something that perfectly summed up the problem of our moment. Dealing with climate change, he said, is “going to take people in Washington who are willing to speak truth to power, are willing to take some risks politically, are willing to get a little bit out ahead of the curve — not two miles ahead of the curve, but just a little bit ahead of it.”
That pretty much defines the Democrats: just a little bit ahead, not as bad as Bush, doing what we can.
And so, as I turn this problem over and over in my head, I keep coming to the same conclusion: we probably need to think, most of the time, about how to change the country, not the Democrats. If we build a movement strong enough to transform the national mood, then perhaps the trembling leaders of the Democrats will eventually follow. I mean, “evolve.” At which point we’ll get an end to things like the Keystone pipeline, and maybe even a price on carbon. That seems to be the lesson of Stonewall and of Selma. The movement is what matters; the Democrats are, at best, the eventual vehicle for closing the deal.
The closest thing I’ve got to a guru on American politics is my senator, Bernie Sanders. He deals with the Democrat problem all the time. He’s an independent, but he caucuses with them, which means he’s locked in the same weird dance as the rest of us working for real change.
A few weeks ago, I gave the keynote address at a global warming summit he convened in Vermont’s state capital, and afterwards I confessed to him my perplexity. “I can’t think of anything we can do except keep trying to build a big movement,” I said. “A movement vast enough to scare or hearten the weak-kneed.”
“There’s nothing else that’s ever going to do it,” he replied.
And so, down to work.
Fracking..........
Hydraulic fracturing or fracking — a method of extracting natural gas from underground shale formations — has become a contentious issue across America, especially in New York, Pennsylvania, West Virginia and Ohio, states that sit on top of the Marcellus Shale, the largest known deposit of shale gas in America. Some estimate that the shale formation could contain nearly 500 trillion cubic feet of gas — enough to power all American homes for 50 years. Oil and mining companies want to get the gas out, but environmentalist groups say the process is not safe.
Here are the facts:
Hydraulic fracturing is a 60-year-old technology. In the 1940s, oil and gas companies learned that pressurized water, sand and chemicals could be injected into a shale formation to loosen the shale and release gas and oil. The chemicals dissolve minerals and kill bacteria, and the sand props open the fractures in the shale so the gas or oil can be released. In the 1990s, oil engineers in Texas began combining fracking techniques with horizontal drilling, using higher volumes of pressurized water and chemical cocktails to release natural gas trapped in shale formations that hadn’t been reachable through vertical drilling.
In the past decade, the use of fracking has transformed America’s energy industry. In 2000, shale gas made up one percent of America’s gas supplies; in 2011 it was 25 percent. Natural gas is cleaner than America’s other two primary sources of energy, coal and oil, and, while more expensive than coal, is far cheaper than oil.
The shale boom has also helped regions that are suffering economically, adding an estimated 72,000 new hires in Pennsylvania between 2009 and 2011.
The chemicals that are injected into shale deposits during fracking in the U.S. include acids, detergents and poisons that can be harmful if they seep into drinking water. Trucking and storage accidents have caused spills of fracking fluids and the salty water used — called brine — also resulting in contaminated drinking water. Gas companies often do not disclose the composition of their fracking chemical cocktails, making it difficult to monitor the risks of each fracking project. Methane gas can also escape during fracking, creating the possibility of dangerous explosions.
After the fracking process, deposits of radioactive elements and huge concentrations of salt are left in the earth’s surface; in order to dispose of these deposits gas companies inject them into deep wells, in some cases triggering small earthquakes, as has already happened in eight U.S. locations. New Pennsylvania regulations enacted in 2011 require gas companies to recycle 90 percent of the briny water by reusing it to frack more shale.
Fracking allows us to burn what was until recently an unreachable fossil fuel reservoir, which leads to the release of more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In addition to the natural gas itself, both the methane gas that is a byproduct of extraction and the carbon dioxide that is created through burning that methane are greenhouse gases and contribute to global warming.
Of the states over the Marcellus Shale formation, fracking is already underway in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Fracking is also being used to reach gas in states beyond the Marcellus deposit, notably North Dakota and Texas. But New York state policymakers have not yet decided whether fracking should be allowed in their state.
In September 2011, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation released its recommendations for how the state can allow fracking without endangering New Yorkers with contaminated drinking water. The DEC recommended that fracking not take place within 2,000 feet of public drinking supplies or within 500 feet of
private wells, unless approved of by the landowner. The proposed rules would also ban fracking within the New York City and Syracuse watersheds. In March 2013, the Democrat-dominated State Assembly approved a two-year moratorium on fracking from the state’s southern border with Pennsylvania to the Catskills until there is “conclusive scientific evidence” on possible health and environmental risks. Conventional drilling, which uses shallower wells and far less water than high-volume fracking, has gone on for decades in New York.
The practice is controversial outside of America as well. France and Bulgaria have the largest shale reserves in Europe; France banned fracking in 2001 due to environmental concerns, and Bulgaria banned it in 2012. Environmentalists are looking for similar bans in England and Poland.
Here are the facts:
Hydraulic fracturing is a 60-year-old technology. In the 1940s, oil and gas companies learned that pressurized water, sand and chemicals could be injected into a shale formation to loosen the shale and release gas and oil. The chemicals dissolve minerals and kill bacteria, and the sand props open the fractures in the shale so the gas or oil can be released. In the 1990s, oil engineers in Texas began combining fracking techniques with horizontal drilling, using higher volumes of pressurized water and chemical cocktails to release natural gas trapped in shale formations that hadn’t been reachable through vertical drilling.
In the past decade, the use of fracking has transformed America’s energy industry. In 2000, shale gas made up one percent of America’s gas supplies; in 2011 it was 25 percent. Natural gas is cleaner than America’s other two primary sources of energy, coal and oil, and, while more expensive than coal, is far cheaper than oil.
The shale boom has also helped regions that are suffering economically, adding an estimated 72,000 new hires in Pennsylvania between 2009 and 2011.
After the fracking process, deposits of radioactive elements and huge concentrations of salt are left in the earth’s surface; in order to dispose of these deposits gas companies inject them into deep wells, in some cases triggering small earthquakes, as has already happened in eight U.S. locations. New Pennsylvania regulations enacted in 2011 require gas companies to recycle 90 percent of the briny water by reusing it to frack more shale.
Fracking allows us to burn what was until recently an unreachable fossil fuel reservoir, which leads to the release of more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. In addition to the natural gas itself, both the methane gas that is a byproduct of extraction and the carbon dioxide that is created through burning that methane are greenhouse gases and contribute to global warming.
Of the states over the Marcellus Shale formation, fracking is already underway in Ohio, Pennsylvania and West Virginia. Fracking is also being used to reach gas in states beyond the Marcellus deposit, notably North Dakota and Texas. But New York state policymakers have not yet decided whether fracking should be allowed in their state.
In September 2011, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation released its recommendations for how the state can allow fracking without endangering New Yorkers with contaminated drinking water. The DEC recommended that fracking not take place within 2,000 feet of public drinking supplies or within 500 feet of
private wells, unless approved of by the landowner. The proposed rules would also ban fracking within the New York City and Syracuse watersheds. In March 2013, the Democrat-dominated State Assembly approved a two-year moratorium on fracking from the state’s southern border with Pennsylvania to the Catskills until there is “conclusive scientific evidence” on possible health and environmental risks. Conventional drilling, which uses shallower wells and far less water than high-volume fracking, has gone on for decades in New York.
The practice is controversial outside of America as well. France and Bulgaria have the largest shale reserves in Europe; France banned fracking in 2001 due to environmental concerns, and Bulgaria banned it in 2012. Environmentalists are looking for similar bans in England and Poland.
Oracle getting air.
http://youtu.be/5zY5NuPNGjwOracle AC72 out getting a little to much air...
http://youtu.be/a49jy9ba4FQ
NZ out practicing as well, races start in a couple of weeks... Maybe....
Voting Rights Act of 1965 just got a lot more limited...
A deeply divided Supreme Court has limited use of a key provision in the
landmark Voting Rights Act of 1965, in effect invalidating federal enforcement
over all or parts of 15 states with past history of voter discrimination.
The court said it is now up to
congressional lawmakers to revise the law to meet constitutional scrutiny.
"Our country has changed, and
while any racial discrimination in voting is too much, Congress must ensure that
the legislation it passes to remedy that problem speaks to the current
conditions," said Chief Justice John Roberts for the 5-4 conservative
majority.
Section 4 of the law was struck
down, the coverage formula used by the federal government to determine which
states and counties are subject to continued oversight. Roberts said that
formula from 1972 was outdated and unworkable.
The practical impact of the
majority ruling means the separate Section 5-- the key enforcement provision--
cannot be enforced.
Any changes in voting laws and
procedures in those covered states-- including much of the South-- must be
"pre-cleared" with Washington. That could include something as simple as moving
a polling place temporarily across the street.
The two key provisions were
reauthorized by Congress in 2006 for another 25 years and officials in Shelby
County, Alabama, subsequently filed suit, saying the monitoring was overly
burdensome and unwarranted.
"Congress could have updated the
coverage formula at that time, but did not do so," said Roberts. "Its failure
leaves us today with no choice but to declare Section 4 unconstitutional. The
formula in that section can no longer be used as a basis for subjecting
jurisdictions to preclearance."
Lagoon
Swirling dust clouds and bright newborn stars dominate the view in this image
of the Lagoon nebula from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope. Also known as Messier
8 and NGC 6523, astronomers estimate it to be between 4000 and 6000 light years
away, lying in the general direction of the center of our galaxy in the
constellation Sagittarius.
The Lagoon nebula was first noted by the astronomer Guillaume Le Gentil in
1747, and a few decades later became the 8th entry in Charles Messiers famous
catalog of nebulae. It is of particular interest to stargazers as it is only one
of two star-forming nebulae that can be seen with the naked eye from northern
latitudes, appearing as a fuzzy grey patch.
The glowing waters of the Lagoon, as seen in visible light, are really pools of hot gas surrounding the massive, young stars found here. Spitzers infrared vision looks past the gas to show the dusty basin that it fills. Here we see the central regions of the Lagoon with green showing the glow of carbon-based dust grains, and red highlighting the thermal glow of the hottest dust.
The various columns of dust all seem to point inwards towards the central depths of the Lagoon. These structures are being sculpted by the intense glow of giant, young stars found at the nebulas core. Within these clouds of dust and gas, a new generation of stars is forming.
This image was made using data from Spitzers Infrared Array Camera (IRAC). Blue shows infrared light with wavelengths of 3.6 microns, green represents 4.5-micron light and red, 8.0-micron light.
The glowing waters of the Lagoon, as seen in visible light, are really pools of hot gas surrounding the massive, young stars found here. Spitzers infrared vision looks past the gas to show the dusty basin that it fills. Here we see the central regions of the Lagoon with green showing the glow of carbon-based dust grains, and red highlighting the thermal glow of the hottest dust.
The various columns of dust all seem to point inwards towards the central depths of the Lagoon. These structures are being sculpted by the intense glow of giant, young stars found at the nebulas core. Within these clouds of dust and gas, a new generation of stars is forming.
This image was made using data from Spitzers Infrared Array Camera (IRAC). Blue shows infrared light with wavelengths of 3.6 microns, green represents 4.5-micron light and red, 8.0-micron light.
June 24, 2013
Update on San Salvador build
I am following up on the build of the Caravel ship San Salvador which is being built in San Diego. I pulled a few pictures so you can see how it is going, they should be launching the ship by next year and it is make a splash literally and figuratively when it hits the water. I am amazed at the construction and think of what it must have been like to build a boat before power tools.... But in any case this is going to be a great ship once it is in the water and sailing.
Bubbles
This infrared image shows a striking example of what is called a hierarchical
bubble structure, in which one giant bubble, carved into the dust of space by
massive stars, has triggered the formation of smaller bubbles. The large bubble
takes up the central region of the picture while the two spawned bubbles, which
can be seen in yellow, are located within its rim.
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope took this image in infrared light. The
multiple bubble family was found by volunteers participating in the Milky Way
Project (see www.milkywayproject.org). This citizen science project, a part of
the Zooniverse group, allows anybody with a computer and an Internet connection
to help astronomers sift through Spitzer images in search of bubbles blown into
the fabric of our Milky Way galaxy.
The bubbles are formed by radiation and winds from massive stars, which carve out holes within surrounding dust clouds. As the material is swept away, it is thought to sometimes trigger the formation of new massive stars, which in turn, blow their own bubbles.
The images in the Milky Way project are from Spitzer's Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire, or Glimpse, project, which is mapping the plane of our galaxy from all directions. As of June 2013, 130 degrees of the sky have been released. The full 360-degree view, which includes the outer reaches of our galaxy located away from its center, is expected soon.
NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope took this image in infrared light. The
multiple bubble family was found by volunteers participating in the Milky Way
Project (see www.milkywayproject.org). This citizen science project, a part of
the Zooniverse group, allows anybody with a computer and an Internet connection
to help astronomers sift through Spitzer images in search of bubbles blown into
the fabric of our Milky Way galaxy.The bubbles are formed by radiation and winds from massive stars, which carve out holes within surrounding dust clouds. As the material is swept away, it is thought to sometimes trigger the formation of new massive stars, which in turn, blow their own bubbles.
The images in the Milky Way project are from Spitzer's Galactic Legacy Infrared Mid-Plane Survey Extraordinaire, or Glimpse, project, which is mapping the plane of our galaxy from all directions. As of June 2013, 130 degrees of the sky have been released. The full 360-degree view, which includes the outer reaches of our galaxy located away from its center, is expected soon.
Small Magellanic Cloud
The tip of the "wing" of the Small Magellanic Cloud galaxy is dazzling in
this new view from NASA's Great Observatories. The Small Magellanic Cloud, or
SMC, is a small galaxy about 200,000 light-years way that orbits our own Milky
Way spiral galaxy.
The colors represent wavelengths of light across a broad spectrum. X-rays
from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory are shown in purple; visible-light from
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is colored red, green and blue; and infrared
observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope are also represented in red.
The spiral galaxy seen in the lower corner is actually behind this nebula. Other distant galaxies located hundreds of millions of light-years or more away can be seen sprinkled around the edge of the image.
The SMC is one of the Milky Way's closest galactic neighbors. Even though it is a small, or so-called dwarf galaxy, the SMC is so bright that it is visible to the unaided eye from the Southern Hemisphere and near the equator. Many navigators, including Ferdinand Magellan who lends his name to the SMC, used it to help find their way across the oceans.
Modern astronomers are also interested in studying the SMC (and its cousin, the Large Magellanic Cloud), but for very different reasons. Because the SMC is so close and bright, it offers an opportunity to study phenomena that are difficult to examine in more distant galaxies. New Chandra data of the SMC have provided one such discovery: the first detection of X-ray emission from young stars, with masses similar to our sun, outside our Milky Way galaxy.
The colors represent wavelengths of light across a broad spectrum. X-rays
from NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory are shown in purple; visible-light from
NASA's Hubble Space Telescope is colored red, green and blue; and infrared
observations from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope are also represented in red.
The spiral galaxy seen in the lower corner is actually behind this nebula. Other distant galaxies located hundreds of millions of light-years or more away can be seen sprinkled around the edge of the image.
The SMC is one of the Milky Way's closest galactic neighbors. Even though it is a small, or so-called dwarf galaxy, the SMC is so bright that it is visible to the unaided eye from the Southern Hemisphere and near the equator. Many navigators, including Ferdinand Magellan who lends his name to the SMC, used it to help find their way across the oceans.
Modern astronomers are also interested in studying the SMC (and its cousin, the Large Magellanic Cloud), but for very different reasons. Because the SMC is so close and bright, it offers an opportunity to study phenomena that are difficult to examine in more distant galaxies. New Chandra data of the SMC have provided one such discovery: the first detection of X-ray emission from young stars, with masses similar to our sun, outside our Milky Way galaxy.
The Older Americans Act and U.S. Seniors
by Greg Kaufmann:
Honoring our grandparents, our elders — in these divisive times, at least we hold this value in common, right?
As children, we dutifully sat through long visits or lectures from older relatives, teachers, neighbors or family friends; and then wised up to learn that some of these relationships would prove to be our most enduring.
It’s enough to make you think that maybe — just maybe — this shared experience would lead to a steadfast commitment from policymakers to ensure that those who cared for us, fought for us and raised us are able to meet their basic needs.
But if you attended Senator Bernie Sanders’s hearing on reducing senior poverty and hunger through the Older Americans Act (OAA) on Wednesday, you were in for a rude awakening.
Signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 at the same time as Medicare and Medicaid, the OAA provides federal funding for essential senior services like job training, caregiver support, transportation, preventative healthcare, meals and protection from abuse and financial exploitation. Funding for the legislation has failed to keep pace with inflation and population growth for decades. Under sequestration, an additional $40 million will be cut from senior meal programs alone, which means that as many as 19 million fewer meals will be available to seniors who need them.
Sanders, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, noted in his opening remarks that OAA “programs not only work to ease isolation, hunger and suffering, they also save taxpayers substantial sums of money.”
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out,” said Sanders, with characteristic bluntness. “If you’re malnourished, you’re going to get sick more often. You may end up in the emergency room at great expense to Medicaid…If you’re weak and you fall and break your hip, you end up in the hospital, at an expense of tens and tens of thousands of dollars…We can feed a senior for an entire year for the cost of one day in a hospital.”
It emerged as the central theme of the hearing — that shortchanging OAA programs isn’t simply a failure on moral grounds, it’s bad economic policy.
Ellie Hollander is president and CEO of the Meals On Wheels Association of America, a nonprofit organization representing local senior nutrition programs in all fifty states. She noted a recent study by the Center for Effective Government, which found that for every $1 in federal spending on Meals on Wheels, there is as much as a $50 return in Medicaid savings alone.
“There is an unrecognized but substantial return on investment,” said Hollander. “[OAA] programs enable seniors to continue living at home, averting far more costly healthcare alternatives such as hospitals and nursing homes. This reduces Medicare and Medicaid expenses, potentially saving billions of dollars.”
But these meals — delivered directly to an individual’s home or to groups at places such as senior centers — currently reach only 2.5 million of the 8.3 million elderly who struggle with hunger.
“The resources fall substantially short,” said Hollander, noting that demand is increasing and that the senior population will double to more than 70 million people by 2030. She said that real funding levels (adjusted for inflation) for OAA nutrition programs have decreased 18 percent since 1992, while the population of those age 60 and older has increased 34 percent over that same period.
Howard Bedlin, vice president of public policy at the National Council of Aging — a nonprofit service and advocacy organization focusing on economically disadvantaged seniors — testified that there are now more than 23 million economically insecure Americans over 60. They struggle with rising energy and healthcare bills, diminished savings and job loss. The recession caused median wealth for people between ages 55 and 74 to decline by approximately 15 percent, and for those over 65 — many of whom now need to continue working or go back to work just to stay afloat — unemployment is at its highest rate since the Great Depression.
The OAA’s Senior Community Service Employment Program is “the nation’s only workforce program designed exclusively [for] vulnerable seniors,” said Bedlin. Nearly 90 percent of participants live in poverty (on less than $11,000 annually), and one-third of them are homeless or at risk of homelessness. While these seniors receive job training that in some cases prevents homelessness, they also perform millions of hours of community service for local organizations struggling with their own budget cuts — “with a value to states and communities estimated at over $1 billion.” Due to a lack of resources, the number of seniors served by the program has declined by 34 percent since FY 2010, and the program now has waiting lists in many cities.
Bedlin also addressed the fact that nursing home costs are now $84,000 annually so “it doesn’t take long to essentially go bankrupt” due to long-term care. But the OAA’s Home and Community-Based Supportive Services help people avoid this situation and remain in their homes, by providing for needs such as transportation, case management, adult daycare and chore assistance.
Bedlin also singled out OAA’s cost-saving role in funding evidence-based “fall prevention programs.” One in three seniors falls every year, and falls are the leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries for people ages 65 and older. The resulting injuries are projected to cost the nation $60 billion in 2020. Research has shown that several local, OAA-supported programs have reduced falls by 30 to 55 percent — which saves money and lives.
Senator Elizabeth Warren pointed to the Pension Counseling and Information Program — which helps seniors recover lost pensions — as one that could be reaching many more seniors with a modest investment. As companies merge, move or change names, people are sometimes unable to obtain the benefits that they worked for, and can’t afford legal assistance to help them recover what they’ve earned. This OAA program funds six regional counseling projects that help individuals in 29 states.
Nancy Altman, co-director of Social Security Works, testified that the counseling program has recovered more than $175 million in pension benefits for 50,000 clients since 1993 — a return of $8 dollars for every federal dollar spent on the program. The current federal cost is $1.6 million, and those monies are used to leverage private and foundation resources, as they are with all OAA programs.
Altman said that some of the states not covered by the six regional projects have a high senior population, such as Florida. If all fifty states were served, Altman believes pension benefits recovered for seniors would likely double.
For Warren, the need to support OAA programs is clear.
“What is our measurement of who we are as a people other than how we treat those who are more vulnerable?” she said. “This is a place where good economics merges with the decisions that are right for us as a country.”
Sanders and seventeen cosponsors have introduced a bill to reauthorize the OAA with a funding increase of 12 percent over FY2010 levels, the amount required to begin to catch up with population growth and inflation over the past decade. (The funding that year was approximately $2.3 billion, accounting for just 0.06 percent of the federal budget; with the proposed increase it would be about 0.07 percent.) He said that “level funding just continues the downward spiral.”
“I happen to believe that if 100 million people were watching this panel today, there would be overwhelming support for this program and significantly increasing funding,” said Sanders. “So I urge and ask people all over this country to stand up for seniors right now, stand up for cost-effective government.”
Honoring our grandparents, our elders — in these divisive times, at least we hold this value in common, right?
As children, we dutifully sat through long visits or lectures from older relatives, teachers, neighbors or family friends; and then wised up to learn that some of these relationships would prove to be our most enduring.
It’s enough to make you think that maybe — just maybe — this shared experience would lead to a steadfast commitment from policymakers to ensure that those who cared for us, fought for us and raised us are able to meet their basic needs.
But if you attended Senator Bernie Sanders’s hearing on reducing senior poverty and hunger through the Older Americans Act (OAA) on Wednesday, you were in for a rude awakening.
Signed into law by President Lyndon Johnson in 1965 at the same time as Medicare and Medicaid, the OAA provides federal funding for essential senior services like job training, caregiver support, transportation, preventative healthcare, meals and protection from abuse and financial exploitation. Funding for the legislation has failed to keep pace with inflation and population growth for decades. Under sequestration, an additional $40 million will be cut from senior meal programs alone, which means that as many as 19 million fewer meals will be available to seniors who need them.
Sanders, chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, noted in his opening remarks that OAA “programs not only work to ease isolation, hunger and suffering, they also save taxpayers substantial sums of money.”
“It doesn’t take a genius to figure it out,” said Sanders, with characteristic bluntness. “If you’re malnourished, you’re going to get sick more often. You may end up in the emergency room at great expense to Medicaid…If you’re weak and you fall and break your hip, you end up in the hospital, at an expense of tens and tens of thousands of dollars…We can feed a senior for an entire year for the cost of one day in a hospital.”
It emerged as the central theme of the hearing — that shortchanging OAA programs isn’t simply a failure on moral grounds, it’s bad economic policy.
Ellie Hollander is president and CEO of the Meals On Wheels Association of America, a nonprofit organization representing local senior nutrition programs in all fifty states. She noted a recent study by the Center for Effective Government, which found that for every $1 in federal spending on Meals on Wheels, there is as much as a $50 return in Medicaid savings alone.
“There is an unrecognized but substantial return on investment,” said Hollander. “[OAA] programs enable seniors to continue living at home, averting far more costly healthcare alternatives such as hospitals and nursing homes. This reduces Medicare and Medicaid expenses, potentially saving billions of dollars.”
But these meals — delivered directly to an individual’s home or to groups at places such as senior centers — currently reach only 2.5 million of the 8.3 million elderly who struggle with hunger.
“The resources fall substantially short,” said Hollander, noting that demand is increasing and that the senior population will double to more than 70 million people by 2030. She said that real funding levels (adjusted for inflation) for OAA nutrition programs have decreased 18 percent since 1992, while the population of those age 60 and older has increased 34 percent over that same period.
Howard Bedlin, vice president of public policy at the National Council of Aging — a nonprofit service and advocacy organization focusing on economically disadvantaged seniors — testified that there are now more than 23 million economically insecure Americans over 60. They struggle with rising energy and healthcare bills, diminished savings and job loss. The recession caused median wealth for people between ages 55 and 74 to decline by approximately 15 percent, and for those over 65 — many of whom now need to continue working or go back to work just to stay afloat — unemployment is at its highest rate since the Great Depression.
The OAA’s Senior Community Service Employment Program is “the nation’s only workforce program designed exclusively [for] vulnerable seniors,” said Bedlin. Nearly 90 percent of participants live in poverty (on less than $11,000 annually), and one-third of them are homeless or at risk of homelessness. While these seniors receive job training that in some cases prevents homelessness, they also perform millions of hours of community service for local organizations struggling with their own budget cuts — “with a value to states and communities estimated at over $1 billion.” Due to a lack of resources, the number of seniors served by the program has declined by 34 percent since FY 2010, and the program now has waiting lists in many cities.
Bedlin also addressed the fact that nursing home costs are now $84,000 annually so “it doesn’t take long to essentially go bankrupt” due to long-term care. But the OAA’s Home and Community-Based Supportive Services help people avoid this situation and remain in their homes, by providing for needs such as transportation, case management, adult daycare and chore assistance.
Bedlin also singled out OAA’s cost-saving role in funding evidence-based “fall prevention programs.” One in three seniors falls every year, and falls are the leading cause of fatal and nonfatal injuries for people ages 65 and older. The resulting injuries are projected to cost the nation $60 billion in 2020. Research has shown that several local, OAA-supported programs have reduced falls by 30 to 55 percent — which saves money and lives.
Senator Elizabeth Warren pointed to the Pension Counseling and Information Program — which helps seniors recover lost pensions — as one that could be reaching many more seniors with a modest investment. As companies merge, move or change names, people are sometimes unable to obtain the benefits that they worked for, and can’t afford legal assistance to help them recover what they’ve earned. This OAA program funds six regional counseling projects that help individuals in 29 states.
Nancy Altman, co-director of Social Security Works, testified that the counseling program has recovered more than $175 million in pension benefits for 50,000 clients since 1993 — a return of $8 dollars for every federal dollar spent on the program. The current federal cost is $1.6 million, and those monies are used to leverage private and foundation resources, as they are with all OAA programs.
Altman said that some of the states not covered by the six regional projects have a high senior population, such as Florida. If all fifty states were served, Altman believes pension benefits recovered for seniors would likely double.
For Warren, the need to support OAA programs is clear.
“What is our measurement of who we are as a people other than how we treat those who are more vulnerable?” she said. “This is a place where good economics merges with the decisions that are right for us as a country.”
Sanders and seventeen cosponsors have introduced a bill to reauthorize the OAA with a funding increase of 12 percent over FY2010 levels, the amount required to begin to catch up with population growth and inflation over the past decade. (The funding that year was approximately $2.3 billion, accounting for just 0.06 percent of the federal budget; with the proposed increase it would be about 0.07 percent.) He said that “level funding just continues the downward spiral.”
“I happen to believe that if 100 million people were watching this panel today, there would be overwhelming support for this program and significantly increasing funding,” said Sanders. “So I urge and ask people all over this country to stand up for seniors right now, stand up for cost-effective government.”
ALEC, destroying America one law at a time.....
BILL MOYERS: What if you were a corporation that stood to make a bundle if oil from the Canadian tar sands was imported by the United States?
And what if you thought federal laws to protect the environment were going to stop that oil-importing from happening?
You’d set your sights on Washington, spread some money around inside the beltway, hire big gun lobbyists to wine and dine the politicians, and stroke the regulators to let the “free market” work, right? Right. You would do all that, but you wouldn’t stop there.
You’d also take your battle to the states, because if you can get laws that serve your interest in one state capitol after another, it might not matter much what Washington has to say about it. Especially in a time like this when our national government is polarized, paralyzed, and dysfunctional and an obstinate minority is determined to keep it that way.
Our 50 state capitols have long been the place where things happen. The taxes you pay, the roads you drive on, the quality of the air you breathe, and the water you drink; your right to privacy and your right to vote – these all bear the imprint of laws passed by the legislature in your home state.
This report is about how some of those laws get enacted thanks to an organization called ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a consortium of corporations and state legislators with so much muscle they’re changing the country one law at a time, one state at a time.
A national consortium of state politicians and powerful corporations, ALEC presents itself as a “nonpartisan public-private partnership”. But behind that mantra lies a vast network of corporate lobbying and political action aimed to increase corporate profits at public expense without public knowledge.
In the case of those Canadian tar sands, ALEC reportedly turned to an oil-industry lobby for a bill that makes it hard for the states to slow the flow of Canadian crude into this country, no matter the environmental consequences.
This is how ALEC has worked for years, pushing changes state by state that could never have been achieved if they had been put to the test of open and broad popular support. ALEC has been so successful working its will behind closed doors in secret, that most Americans had never even heard of it until recently. ALEC had never even been subjected to scrutiny on national television until the documentary report we broadcast last fall. That was a collaboration between Okapi Productions and the Schumann Media Center that I head. Schumann supports independent journalists and public watchdog groups like the Center for Media and Democracy and Common Cause. Their investigators have been tracking the intersection between money and politics and finding ALEC squarely in the middle of it all across the country. “The United States of ALEC.”
Let me tell you a little more about what ALEC has been up to. In the interest of a healthy environment, 29 states have laws requiring utilities to provide a portion of their electricity from renewable energy sources. The idea, of course, is to cut back on the use of fossil fuels, which, as everyone knows, contribute to global warming.
Yet even as headlines about climate chaos confront us every day, ALEC is doing its damnedest to undermine the use of clean, renewable energy.
Take a look at this. It’s called the “Electricity Freedom Act” – one of ALEC’s ‘model’ bills. Sounds great – who doesn’t like freedom? But the bill amounts to an effort by the fossil fuel industry to curtail the freedom of states to set Renewable Energy Standards, by repealing those state laws.
In the last two years, 21 of the 29 states with Renewable Energy Standards have seen bills proposed that would weaken or repeal them, over half of them pushed by lawmakers with confirmed ALEC ties. In two states – Ohio and New Hampshire – such bills have already become law.
It will hardly surprise you that ALEC gets millions of dollars from the fossil fuel industry, or that companies that have served on the ALEC task force that produced the “Electricity Freedom Act” include representatives of – hold your breath – ExxonMobil, Peabody Energy, and Koch Industries.
Now ALEC doesn’t like all this to be publicized. It doesn’t like exposure to sunshine at all. In fact, they’ve recently begun including fine print on their materials saying they believe the documents are, quote, “… not subject to disclosure under any state Freedom of Information or Public Records Act.”
Got it? Take another look: “…not subject to disclosure under any state Freedom of Information or Public Records Act.”
So, when your elected legislators are meeting with corporate lobbyists behind closed doors, ALEC thinks you – the public, the voter – have no right to know what they have done or even talked about.
That’s not all. ALEC thinks that even the name “ALEC” has gotten far too much attention. So it’s come up with a new strategy, described recently by its chief flack in a memo to his members.
Quote: “You May Have Noticed We are Limiting the Use of the Acronym ‘ALEC’… Over the last year, the word ‘ALEC’ has been used to conjure up images of a distant, mysterious, Washington alphabet organization of unknown intentions…”
So, “The organization has refocused on the words ‘Exchange’ and ‘Council’ to emphasize our goal of a broad exchange of ideas to make government work better and more efficiently.”
Ah yes, but better and more efficient government for whom? ALEC’s “Private Enterprise Advisory Council” still contains a who’s who of elite corporate power; its health care agenda still calls for privatizing Medicare; its economic agenda for tax cuts for the rich; and its education agenda for more public money going to private schools.
Then theres PAUL WEYRICH who said "I don’t want everybody to vote…"
Who as you will remember wanted less voter turnout, not more. That spirit suffused ALEC’s sponsorship last year of so-called “Voter Reform” measures, which would have made it harder for young, elderly, and low-income Americans to vote.
And for sheer audacity in the capture of government, you can’t beat what happened under the capitol dome in South Dakota earlier this year: ALEC allies decided the cost of sending some state legislators to wine and dine with those corporate lawyers and lobbyists should be paid by taxpayers. But that wasn’t enough. Those same South Dakota taxpayers now have to pay ALEC dues for legislators who are members.
It’s like tipping the thief for picking your pocket.
But give them credit where credit’s due: the political, religious and corporate right conceived a brilliant strategy for advancing their agenda by going to the states. Brilliant, but disingenuous. They choose to talk about “free markets” when in fact their member corporations prefer to arrange the markets to their advantage. They boast that “government closest to the people” is, quote, “fundamentally, more effective, more just, and a better guarantor of freedom than the distant, bloated federal government in Washington, D.C."
But what is “just” about laws written to benefit powerful organized interests at the expense of everyone else? What is just about going to great lengths to make sure “the people” don’t know who is writing those laws? If getting closer to “the people” is really your goal, it’s curious behavior to cover your tracks, keep your sessions closed to the press, and do most of the “people's work” in secret.
No, when all is said and done, the pro-capitalist magazine “Businessweek” got it right: quote, “part of ALEC’s mission is to present industry-backed legislation as grass-roots work.”
In state houses around the country, hundreds of pieces of boilerplate ALEC legislation are proposed or enacted that would, among other things, dilute collective bargaining rights, make it harder for some Americans to vote, and limit corporate liability for harm caused to consumers — each accomplished without the public ever knowing who’s behind it. ALEC’s self-serving machine acting in a way one Wisconsin politician describes as “a corporate dating service for lonely legislators and corporate special interests.”
Former health care industry executive Wendell Potter says, “Even though I’d known of [ALEC] for a long time, I was astonished. Just about everything that I knew that the health insurance industry wanted out of any state lawmaker was included in that package of bills.”
Isn't America great????
And what if you thought federal laws to protect the environment were going to stop that oil-importing from happening?
You’d set your sights on Washington, spread some money around inside the beltway, hire big gun lobbyists to wine and dine the politicians, and stroke the regulators to let the “free market” work, right? Right. You would do all that, but you wouldn’t stop there.
You’d also take your battle to the states, because if you can get laws that serve your interest in one state capitol after another, it might not matter much what Washington has to say about it. Especially in a time like this when our national government is polarized, paralyzed, and dysfunctional and an obstinate minority is determined to keep it that way.
Our 50 state capitols have long been the place where things happen. The taxes you pay, the roads you drive on, the quality of the air you breathe, and the water you drink; your right to privacy and your right to vote – these all bear the imprint of laws passed by the legislature in your home state.
This report is about how some of those laws get enacted thanks to an organization called ALEC, the American Legislative Exchange Council, a consortium of corporations and state legislators with so much muscle they’re changing the country one law at a time, one state at a time.
A national consortium of state politicians and powerful corporations, ALEC presents itself as a “nonpartisan public-private partnership”. But behind that mantra lies a vast network of corporate lobbying and political action aimed to increase corporate profits at public expense without public knowledge.
In the case of those Canadian tar sands, ALEC reportedly turned to an oil-industry lobby for a bill that makes it hard for the states to slow the flow of Canadian crude into this country, no matter the environmental consequences.
This is how ALEC has worked for years, pushing changes state by state that could never have been achieved if they had been put to the test of open and broad popular support. ALEC has been so successful working its will behind closed doors in secret, that most Americans had never even heard of it until recently. ALEC had never even been subjected to scrutiny on national television until the documentary report we broadcast last fall. That was a collaboration between Okapi Productions and the Schumann Media Center that I head. Schumann supports independent journalists and public watchdog groups like the Center for Media and Democracy and Common Cause. Their investigators have been tracking the intersection between money and politics and finding ALEC squarely in the middle of it all across the country. “The United States of ALEC.”
Let me tell you a little more about what ALEC has been up to. In the interest of a healthy environment, 29 states have laws requiring utilities to provide a portion of their electricity from renewable energy sources. The idea, of course, is to cut back on the use of fossil fuels, which, as everyone knows, contribute to global warming.
Yet even as headlines about climate chaos confront us every day, ALEC is doing its damnedest to undermine the use of clean, renewable energy.
Take a look at this. It’s called the “Electricity Freedom Act” – one of ALEC’s ‘model’ bills. Sounds great – who doesn’t like freedom? But the bill amounts to an effort by the fossil fuel industry to curtail the freedom of states to set Renewable Energy Standards, by repealing those state laws.
In the last two years, 21 of the 29 states with Renewable Energy Standards have seen bills proposed that would weaken or repeal them, over half of them pushed by lawmakers with confirmed ALEC ties. In two states – Ohio and New Hampshire – such bills have already become law.
It will hardly surprise you that ALEC gets millions of dollars from the fossil fuel industry, or that companies that have served on the ALEC task force that produced the “Electricity Freedom Act” include representatives of – hold your breath – ExxonMobil, Peabody Energy, and Koch Industries.
Now ALEC doesn’t like all this to be publicized. It doesn’t like exposure to sunshine at all. In fact, they’ve recently begun including fine print on their materials saying they believe the documents are, quote, “… not subject to disclosure under any state Freedom of Information or Public Records Act.”
Got it? Take another look: “…not subject to disclosure under any state Freedom of Information or Public Records Act.”
So, when your elected legislators are meeting with corporate lobbyists behind closed doors, ALEC thinks you – the public, the voter – have no right to know what they have done or even talked about.
That’s not all. ALEC thinks that even the name “ALEC” has gotten far too much attention. So it’s come up with a new strategy, described recently by its chief flack in a memo to his members.
Quote: “You May Have Noticed We are Limiting the Use of the Acronym ‘ALEC’… Over the last year, the word ‘ALEC’ has been used to conjure up images of a distant, mysterious, Washington alphabet organization of unknown intentions…”
So, “The organization has refocused on the words ‘Exchange’ and ‘Council’ to emphasize our goal of a broad exchange of ideas to make government work better and more efficiently.”
Ah yes, but better and more efficient government for whom? ALEC’s “Private Enterprise Advisory Council” still contains a who’s who of elite corporate power; its health care agenda still calls for privatizing Medicare; its economic agenda for tax cuts for the rich; and its education agenda for more public money going to private schools.
Then theres PAUL WEYRICH who said "I don’t want everybody to vote…"
Who as you will remember wanted less voter turnout, not more. That spirit suffused ALEC’s sponsorship last year of so-called “Voter Reform” measures, which would have made it harder for young, elderly, and low-income Americans to vote.
And for sheer audacity in the capture of government, you can’t beat what happened under the capitol dome in South Dakota earlier this year: ALEC allies decided the cost of sending some state legislators to wine and dine with those corporate lawyers and lobbyists should be paid by taxpayers. But that wasn’t enough. Those same South Dakota taxpayers now have to pay ALEC dues for legislators who are members.
It’s like tipping the thief for picking your pocket.
But give them credit where credit’s due: the political, religious and corporate right conceived a brilliant strategy for advancing their agenda by going to the states. Brilliant, but disingenuous. They choose to talk about “free markets” when in fact their member corporations prefer to arrange the markets to their advantage. They boast that “government closest to the people” is, quote, “fundamentally, more effective, more just, and a better guarantor of freedom than the distant, bloated federal government in Washington, D.C."
But what is “just” about laws written to benefit powerful organized interests at the expense of everyone else? What is just about going to great lengths to make sure “the people” don’t know who is writing those laws? If getting closer to “the people” is really your goal, it’s curious behavior to cover your tracks, keep your sessions closed to the press, and do most of the “people's work” in secret.
No, when all is said and done, the pro-capitalist magazine “Businessweek” got it right: quote, “part of ALEC’s mission is to present industry-backed legislation as grass-roots work.”
In state houses around the country, hundreds of pieces of boilerplate ALEC legislation are proposed or enacted that would, among other things, dilute collective bargaining rights, make it harder for some Americans to vote, and limit corporate liability for harm caused to consumers — each accomplished without the public ever knowing who’s behind it. ALEC’s self-serving machine acting in a way one Wisconsin politician describes as “a corporate dating service for lonely legislators and corporate special interests.”
Former health care industry executive Wendell Potter says, “Even though I’d known of [ALEC] for a long time, I was astonished. Just about everything that I knew that the health insurance industry wanted out of any state lawmaker was included in that package of bills.”
Isn't America great????
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